


Serpentine

by artemisgrace



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Angst with a Happy Ending, But consensual, Cannibalism, Consensual Sex, Descent Into Darkness, Devotion, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Hannibal AU, M/M, Manipulation, Nightmares, References to Depression, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Content, Symbolism, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, disturbing imagery, for some, not safe or sane, references to mythology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:54:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12091266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisgrace/pseuds/artemisgrace
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki is a socially anxious introvert working for the FBI as a consultant on all the cases that no one else is able to solve. His ability to take on the perspectives and personas of virtually anyone makes him an invaluable asset, but it also isolates him from other people, breeding suspicion. And fear.A highly distinguished psychiatrist, Viktor Nikiforov is renowned not only for his illustrious career, but also for his elegance and social refinement. He is very poised, a man with a taste for the finer things: the finest tailored clothes, the best gourmet food. He is drawn to the luxurious and the unique as a moth is drawn to a flame.He finds something of irresistible uniqueness in the form of Yuuri Katsuki.When Viktor is brought in to assist Yuuri on the case of the Chimera Killer, they find themselves so tangled up in each other they could not break free ... even if they wanted to.This is a story of undying love and devotion, deceit, and a descent into darkness.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second Yuuri on Ice fic ever, and because I am terrible and corrupt, I feel compelled to place these lovely and reasonably harmless characters into universes in which they are subjected to, and cause, all sorts of trauma and tragedy. 
> 
> But even amongst all that, there can be beauty. 
> 
> I hope that you enjoy this fic! I would love to hear your thoughts, and I am ever so pleased that you've chosen to read my humble scribblings.

Yuuri stands in the corner of the room, swimming in the cloth of his incredibly ill-fitting suit, clutching the glass of champagne in his hand like a lifeline. Dinner parties were always excruciating, and this one was no exception. 

He’d received an invitation in the mail, an extravagant thing, hand-written in immaculate penmanship and wrapped in an embossed envelope. There was no stamp, so it must have been hand-delivered as well as hand-written, by someone with a great deal of time to spare, someone by the name of Dr. Viktor Nikiforov, as the envelope announced. 

It was odd. Yuuri had never been introduced to this Dr. Nikiforov, for he was sure he’d have remembered the rather unusual name if they had been introduced, and yet the man had apparently seen fit to hand-deliver an invitation to a dinner party straight to Yuuri’s own mailbox, out in the middle of nowhere. The mystery doctor must also be remarkably stealthy, Yuuri had thought, recalling that he hadn’t seen anyone approach the house on the day of the envelope’s arrival, despite the clear view that the open land surrounding his lonely house afforded. 

He tells himself that it must be due to the deliverer’s stealth that he hadn’t seen the letter arrive, but that may not be it at all. He’s been … losing time lately. Even had the deliverer been loud and obnoxious, that’s no guarantee that Yuuri couldn’t have missed him, if he’d been in such a state at the time.

Perhaps he should be worried about it. But he hasn’t the time. Too much still to be done, always, too much yet to be done. And other people who need help that only he can provide ...

Some cursory googling on Yuuri’s part had revealed the sender, Dr. Nikiforov, to be a prominent member of the local elite, a high-society social butterfly of great renown and impeccable reputation. This did nothing to illuminate the man’s reason for inviting Yuuri, a little-known and even less well-liked consultant with the FBI, that is, until Yuuri came across the man’s profession. Dr. Nikiforov was an eminent psychiatrist.

Yuuri could smell Yakov’s massive, interfering hands all over this.

But any and all attempts to confront Yakov resulted in nothing but avoidance and, as the evening of the dinner party drew near, Yuuri received a text informing him that Yakov had RSVPed to the invitation on Yuuri’s behalf. A not-so-subtle hint that Yuuri’s attendance at the party would be mandatory, with hell to pay should he not comply. Yakov appeared most insistent that Yuuri meet with Dr. Nikiforov, and Yuuri had no trouble guessing why. 

Yuuri has never been the most … stable … of people. He’s been riddled with anxiety for the vast majority of his life, certainly all of his adult life. He’s always felt too much, too deeply, and it hadn’t helped him in making friends. It’s hard to be friends with someone when you have the empathetic ability to perfectly adopt their point of view at will, when you can predict their actions with almost complete accuracy. Funnily enough, that’s not something that endears you to people. Rather, it frightens them.

This … ability of Yuuri’s hadn’t been all that useful in his daily life, more of a hindrance than a help, but when working with the FBI as he did now, it made him an “invaluable resource” as Yakov had put it. Yuuri could never be an agent, that had been made abundantly clear to him after he’d failed the necessary psychological evaluation, but Yakov had arranged it so that Yuuri could still consult. The unspoken implication was that this would be done only under Yakov’s very close supervision. 

Yuuri cannot be trusted. Yuuri is not normal. Yuuri is not sane. The words were not spoken within his earshot, but he heard them all the same. 

And this meant that Yakov was his babysitter. And Yakov had evidently seen fit to set Yuuri up with a new psychiatrist in some bizarre parody of a blind date. Yakov was “helping” again. The last psychiatrist Yakov had procured hadn’t hung about for very long. Yuuri hadn’t done anything to him, per say, but he may have acted deliberately obtuse in order to drive the man away by means of extreme frustration. The man was irritating, and Yuuri had no qualms about being equally irritating, particularly if it meant he could get the other to fuck off and go bother someone else. Yuuri had gotten a strong talking-to from Yakov, but ultimately it hadn’t added up to much more than a figurative slap on the wrist. 

Yuuri wasn’t antagonistic by nature, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t be … persuaded into it.

Perhaps Yuuri could have gotten away with not going to the dinner after all, but he had rather been pushing his luck lately, and Yakov could only be pushed so far before he snapped in an entertaining, but ultimately troublesome burst of temper. While attending the event would most certainly be agonizing, Yuuri figured that it would probably save him trouble in the long run, so he had resolved to go as he was expected to. 

At this precise moment though, standing uncomfortably in the corner, Yuuri finds himself regretting that decision as he knocks back the contents of his glass, practically vibrating with nervous energy, despite his pleasure at being overlooked so far. It’s probably bad form to knock back champagne like shots; it probably reveals a distasteful ignorance of a good sparkling wine, but Yuuri’s counting on the fact that the bar set for him is so spectacularly low that his abuse of pricey alcohol won’t place him below it. 

Fiddling with his now empty glass, Yuuri senses eyes upon him for the first time that night and tenses, preparing himself for an impending, painfully awkward social interaction as he spies Yakov approaching, weaving his way through gaggles of snobbish individuals engaged in vapid conversation. Following closely at Yakov’s elbow is a tall, elegant man with short, silvery blonde hair and a very well-tailored, lightly patterned suit, his graceful, thin-fingered hand gently holding a glass of champagne, still mostly full.

Yuuri is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he himself is standing around in the same old suit he’d graduated from both high school and university in, holding an empty glass, and looking as much the antithesis of the tall, elegant gentleman as is physically possible. He shoves down the rush of anxiety that threatens to raise his heart rate and turns to face the approaching men, his features schooled into a more neutral expression. In a slight panic, he looks about for a place to set his empty glass down, finding that the only appropriate piece of furniture was a tiny table-thing, the surface a of which was mostly taken up by some sort of fancy vase. There’s just enough space on the tabletop to fit the glass, so Yuuri does his best to subtly place it there, precarious though it may be, to free his hands up for the impending hand-shaking and introductions.

“Oh, Yuuri!” Yakov exclaims in greeting, “There you are!” As if Yakov hadn’t known. As if Yuuri didn’t know exactly what was going on here. The man that Yakov had led over, with his flawless white-toothed smile, his pristine suit, and his immaculate hair, all screaming of wealth and sophistication, could be none other than their host, the esteemed doctor.

Thumping a friendly open hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, Yakov gestures with his other hand towards the silver-haired man, proving Yuuri’s assumption to be correct as he announces, “I’d like you to meet Dr. Viktor Nikivofrov, our host this evening. Viktor, this is Yuuri Katsuki, the special agent of ours that I mentioned to you the other day.”

“It was very kind of him to invite us,” Yakov adds with a pointed look at Yuuri, the very clearest of cues, to which Yuuri obediently, if reluctantly, responds. 

“Yes, thank you for the invitation,” Yuuri says mechanically, stretching out a hand to meet Dr. Nikiforov’s own in a firm handshake. 

The man’s hands are remarkably soft, Yuuri notes, though he can’t think why it should be a matter of any surprise. Dr. Nikiforov is a member of the social elite, a group of people famously known for their soft, uncalloused hands. Yuuri can’t help but imagine how rough his own hands must feel to Dr. Nikiforov, how boorish he must seem, how out of place he must appear in this fine house. 

“The pleasure is all mine.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor and Yuuri are introduced ... and already, there is something strange and magnetic about Viktor that draws Yuuri in, even while he finds it disconcerting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait to post this, you know, at least more than a day, but I am impatient and y'all will have to wait a while before chapter three comes along, seeing as I will be moving across the state and into a college dorm next week. So I thought I might as well give you all something to tide you over :) 
> 
> Wish me luck!
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for joining me on this new fanfic adventure! May it be a success!

“The pleasure is all mine,” Dr. Nikiforov replies, a formulaic response, one that sounds well-practiced. There’s something odd, Yuuri observes, looking back as Dr. Nikiforov looks at him. It’s as if the man is wearing a mask, one that has been carefully sculpted so that it is nigh indistinguishable from a real, sincere human face. It’s the eyes that Yuuri glimpses beyond the mask, the eyes that give a real impression of what the man before him is like. 

His eyes are blue. Not the blue of a tropical lagoon, temperate and serene, but the blue of a glacier; ice cold, entirely dispassionate, and suggestive of an immense and uncaring force trapped within the frozen water. Slow, precise, and inescapable should the force be turned on you. Eyes are the windows to the soul, the old wives’ tales say. 

They’re … mesmerizing …

His mind returning to the present, Yuuri realizes that he’s been standing there for just a bit too long for comfort, still holding Dr. Nikiforov’s hand. He drops the hand as if he’s just been scalded and is all too aware of the look he’s getting from Yakov. Yuuri has just been incredibly weird in public, and he’s fully aware of it. 

With the recent press coverage of their latest case, during which the tabloid news journalists had somehow managed to catch sight of Yuuri and proceeded to speculate about him in their usual unkind way, Yuuri couldn’t afford too many incidents of acting oddly in public. Tongues wag cruelly, and he wasn’t exactly a favorite, even in the FBI, even without drawing unwanted attention upon his colleagues. The cruel tongues would be listened to, and it could well lead to very real consequences, even if the stories themselves were false or exaggerated. 

The look he’s getting from Dr. Nikiforov, who did not move to drop Yuuri’s hand, as Yuuri has certainly noticed, is much more interesting, however. The expression on his face has hardly changed, but the look in his eyes has certainly shifted. If Yuuri didn’t know better, he might call it a spark of interest. While he’s been sizing Dr. Nikiforov up, Dr. Nikiforov has been doing the same, and evidently, he’s intrigued by what he’s seen. 

The man smiles, and this time there is a light in his eyes as he does so, not the same dull façade that Yuuri had observed from afar as he’d gone through the social motions with each of his varied guests.

“I am gratified that you were able to attend my little gathering, Mr. Katsuki,” Dr. Nikforov practically purrs, voice gentle, almost hypnotic, though whether this is an affectation or not, Yuuri can’t quite tell. 

“Oh, please,” Yuuri replies, feeling himself becoming flustered and hating himself for it, “call me Yuuri, Dr. Nikiforov. Hardly anyone ever calls me ‘Mr. Katsuki.’ It makes me feel as though I’m in court.”

“Well then, I would be pleased if you would call me Viktor, Yuuri.” 

That glint flashes in his eyes again, and Yuuri would call it amusement, if he had any idea what it is that Dr. Nikiforov -Viktor- is finding so amusing. Usually Yuuri can read people very well, indeed that’s been his professional specialty for some time now, but there’s something about Viktor that eludes all attempts at definition. 

He is a man, Yuuri suspects, of complex motivations. 

“Well, I’ll just leave you two to talk then, shall I?” Yakov announces before awkwardly shuffling away and melding into the chatting, champagne-clutching multitude milling about the place. 

It’s so ham-handed that Yuuri can hardly believe it. Yakov has never been overly concerned with tact, Yuuri is well apprised of this fact, but this latest statement of his is so mind-bogglingly tactless that it still manages to be a surprise. He watches Yakov’s retreating suited back as he moves to enter himself into conversation with a group of people that Yuuri hasn’t yet made the acquaintance of. His back remains stiff even as he begins to speak. He knows Yuuri’s eyes are on him and it’s making him nervous. Good.

Yuuri turns back to Dr. Nikiforov, dreading where the man will take this very obvious cue to introduce that which Yuuri would rather not discuss.

“I shan’t insult you by asking whether you know what this is about,” the man begins, swirling the champagne in his glass in a casual motion, his bright blue eyes intent on Yuuri’s face. 

“I appreciate that,” Yuuri says, and he does. 

“I trust you’ve already done a small amount of research and have discovered that I am a psychiatrist. Well, Yakov has approached me to ask me to work with you on a new case, Yuuri. I expect the recent dismemberment case is known to you? Some sensationalist newspaper got ahold of it, caused the department a bit of grief?”

“The one where the victims were … reassembled? I’m aware of it,” Yuuri nods, “But I haven’t been invited to work on it …”

“You’re about to be.”

“What?”

“Yakov has explained to me the sort of cases that they bring you in on,” Dr. Nikiforov elaborates, “The stranger, the more inexplicable, the more they need you. And up until now, the case, while certainly odd, hasn’t been enough of a priority to require your attention any more than your other cases.”

“But something has changed?” Yuuri inquires.

“Yes. A new development.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what development that would be?”

The man smiles, evidently amused, “I’m afraid not at this party, no. I would dearly love to, Yuuri, but I’m afraid that is not within my purview. I’ve been told that you will be officially briefed on the matter on Monday, and that I will be there with you when it happens.” 

“So, it’s particularly grisly then?”  
“Indeed.”

“So much so that Yakov has hired me a nanny shrink?”

“Not the phrase I would have used certainly, but you are not incorrect in your assumption.,” the man replies with hardly a pause.

“And you won’t give me even a hint? A show of goodwill to your new charge?”

“I never said that,” Dr. Nikiforov says, one of his eyebrows raising in amusement, “I can tell you what they’re calling the case now though.”

“It’s significant enough to get its own nickname now then?”

“They’re calling him the “Chimera Killer.”

“Chimera?” Yuuri says, rather take aback, “As in the mythological monster?”

“Just so.”

Well that’s … interesting. And a cue to Yuuri’s imagination to start working overtime. What could a killer do to his victims to earn himself the name “the Chimera Killer?” Yuuri can think of four or five things off the top of his head, but he wonders, with more interest than he is comfortable with, which of those ideas this mystery killer somewhere out there in the world had had first.

“Fascinating, I know,” comes the sound of Dr. Nikiforov’s voice through the fog of morbid possibility that has begun to gather in Yuuri’s mind.

“Huh?” Yuuri makes a sound of confusion, as would a man waking from a deep sleep.

“It’s terrible, of course, such a tragedy, but one must admit that the mind behind it is intriguing. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, yes, I suppose, especially from your perspective, as a professional in the field of psychology, it might be interesting,” Yuuri manages to stumble the words out of his mouth in some semblance of order, but even to his own ears they sound poorly-constructed. Insincere. Deflection.

“And from your perspective? You are also a professional in the field, I dare say.”

“Um,” Yuuri hesitates, not a good start to a statement he wants to be taken seriously, “he may be unusual and therefore worth study, but at the end of the day, he’s just another murderer.”

“So, you think that all murderers are fundamentally alike?” Dr. Nikiforov inquires, and for the first time in their conversation, Yuuri feels as though he’s being tested, analyzed, and he doesn’t like it.

“Of course not, motivations, methods, even aesthetic all vary. What I mean is that, regardless of what they do or why, the key result, that someone dies, is always the same. My role, to catch them, is always the same, and in that way, they are all the same to me,” Yuuri explains impatiently. 

Dr. Nikiforov merely nods his head and takes a sip of his champagne, clearly having more to say but electing, for the time being, not to say it. 

“So, um …” Yuuri decides to change the subject, since Dr. Nikiforov hasn’t indicated any inclination to move away, despite the decidedly awkward lull in conversation, “It’s a very nice house you have, Dr. Nikiforov.”

“Viktor, please,” the man reminds him, the smile on his face not really connected to his eyes. 

Something about what Yuuri recently said has dulled his interest, and this smile, as opposed to the one he’d sported earler, is merely the mandatory social response for Yuuri’s rather mediocre compliment. What part of what Yuuri said created this distance? Was it his tone? 

“Oh, yes, sorry,” Yuuri apologizes, glancing about the room for something else to remark upon, when he notices a graphite sketch framed upon the wall near them. It doesn’t match the other decorations, most of those being renaissance style paintings, perhaps even originals, they sure look it, though Yuuri admittedly is no expert on art.

The kind of “art” that Yuuri knows most about tends to be rather the gory sort. 

The piece upon the wall is … haunting. It’s a relatively ordinary landscape scene. A forest with a stream running through it. But there’s something about it, something in the lighting, in the strokes of pencil on paper that render it curiously eerie. It defied description, and at once drew the eye to it. Enraptured, Yuuri wanders closer to the picture, looking at it intently, and in his peripheral vision, he sees Viktor turn to follow Yuuri’s gaze, his smile beginning to reach his eyes once again.

Viktor is proud of this one. It’s special. Why would he care about this sketch more than those elaborate paintings … Ah.

“You drew this one?” Yuuri asks, but it’s more of a statement than a question.

“Yes,” Viktor confirms, smiling the smile of a proud man whose prowess has been affirmed, “Do you like it?”

“Yes, I do, it’s … uncanny …”

“Uncanny?”

“It feels like something I’ve seen before,” Yuuri elaborates, “yet I’m certain I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. Does that make sense?”

“Perhaps,” Viktor replies, giving Yuuri the opportunity to continue.

“It’s haunting. As if I’m catching a glimpse of some spectral thing that I’ve never seen with my eyes, but have always been aware of …” Yuuri’s voice trails off, not sure where he’s going with this, or whether he’s managed to articulate the precise nature of his thoughts at all. 

“I’m flattered,” Viktor says, and with the glint that flashes in his eyes, Yuuri believes that he really is.

“Was haunting what you were going for?” Yuuri asks, curious.

“I can’t say that I recall having that particular intention at the time, but I’m pleased to hear that that is the result,” Viktor answers, “I’ve never been one for feel-good artworks, those which are pretty, but which have no real depth to them. I like complexity and eeriness, that which forces to viewer to contemplate the work. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“There can be value in something that is simply pretty for prettiness’s sake,” Yuuri contests, though generally speaking, he tends to be of the same opinion as Viktor.

“I suppose so, but not for myself. Call me pretentious, but simplicity bores me,” Viktor says, and Yuuri reflects that he absolutely would call this man pretentious.

“Besides, I’m of the opinion that beauty cannot truly be appreciated unless it is presented in juxtaposition with horror, with ugliness. How can we tell what is beautiful unless we can tell that which is not?” the man opines.

“That is a point, but I can’t say I agree with you completely,” Yuuri replies.

“Well, I would be disappointed if you did,” Viktor responds, “there would be no opportunity for growth if we thought entirely the same.”

“You’re expecting growth?” Yuuri inquires, an eyebrow raised.

“I am merely hopeful,” Viktor clarifies, “I would like to be your friend, Yuuri.”

“I thought you wanted to be my psychiatrist? Isn’t it unethical to have such a close relationship with your patient?”

“I must contest,” the man replies, “I do not want to be your psychiatrist; Yakov wants me to be your psychiatrist. I would be pleased to be in a position to help you, to benefit your mental health, but I’d much rather do so as a friend and associate than as a doctor.”

“So, you’d be my doctor on paper, but not in practice?”

“If you would find such an arrangement agreeable.”

Yuuri considers it. It’s hard to find Viktor sincere when he says things such as that but if Yuuri is to be followed around by a shrink as he works, he’d rather it be by a shrink who isn’t insistent on keeping Yuuri confined within rules and expectations, who sees Yuuri as someone unable to know their own mind. And who knows, perhaps the man is genuine, perhaps he does truly want the friendship of someone like Yuuri. It may be improbable, going by Yuuri’s own experience, but it is not impossible.

“I’m okay with that,” Yuuri agrees. 

“Excellent,” Viktor says, appearing genuinely pleased, “I’m looking forward to working with you, Yuuri.”

“Likewise,” Yuuri replies, but he’s not entirely sure yet whether or not he really means it.

“I would love to continue this conversation with you, Yuuri, but I’m afraid the evening is waning late, and there are still guests that I must greet,” Viktor announces, voice full of exaggerated regret, “It’s my duty as a host, you see.”

“Oh, I understand. I’ll see you on … Monday, you said it was?”

“Yes, Monday,” Viktor reaffirms, smiling, “I’ll see you at work then.”

“Okay,” Yuuri says, but he can’t quite deny his disappointment at being left to his own devices once again.

Yuuri is surprised to feel the gentle touch of a hand on his shoulder, Viktor’s hand, the one not currently occupied by a champagne flute, squeezing softly in reassurance before parting from him to meld back into the crowd.

Yuuri stands there alone, in his corner, with his empty glass, for the rest of the evening, watching the milling about of strangers in semi-formal wear. It’s a pageant of upper-middle class impersonations of nobility: a lot of nice suits, shiny cufflinks, and sparkling jewelry, but even in the midst of it, Viktor stands there, above the rest, in a bubble of effortless style. The eye can’t help but follow him. It’s a magnetism, and Yuuri sees it work on the crowd, turning as they do to follow Viktor’s movements, an action that is likely entirely unconscious.

Even though he’s aware of the existence of the effect, Yuuri can't help but fall victim to it too, his gaze remaining locked on Viktor as the man makes his rounds about the room, repeatedly engaging in formally casual conversations that all sound relatively the same. A remarkably colorful monotony.

It is only when Yuuri’s concentration breaks for a moment, and he looks down to fiddle with one of the buttons on his jacket, that Viktor’s eye’s flick up to gaze back. 

Calculating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is when things start to get weird, but, I must emphasize, if you think it's gotten really weird ... I'm still going to escalate it. I am that person. 
> 
> Anyway, next time: Yuuri's dream.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri dreams ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm all moved in and settled into my dorm room, but alas, this also means that I now have homework that I must do ...   
> Anyway, here's chapter three, in which we see into one of Yuuri's nightmares. Fun stuff.

Yuuri Katsuki tosses on cheap cotton sheets, sweat-soaked in his sleep at night. 

Yuuri Katsuki dreams.

He is in a forest, it would appear, and though the woods appear sparse, the trees spindly and largely without leaves, there is something about the light here that gives the impression of a stifling, oppressive density. The air is thick and chilled, straining Yuuri’s lungs as they work to breathe in, and he can feel the moisture in it, tiny droplets of water condensing to form a cold second skin over him. It streams from down his skin in frigid rivulets and drips from his hair, but the drops do not sparkle or glisten as they fall from the black strands onto the ground. The light here is so diffused, no sun visible overhead at all, not even as a faint ball of light in the sky. There’s no telling what time it is, nor is there much indication of season. 

The forest exists outside of all those things, beautiful and malevolent.

Though the air is damp, dead and decaying leaves still crackle lightly underfoot as Yuuri steps softly across the soft forest floor, careful to avoid any of the fallen branches and other debris underfoot. They would be loud, these larger twigs, were they to snap, and something about the forest demands quiet, gives the impression that noise would be sacrilegious. This place has a sanctity to it, a solemnity, but it’s the sort of gravity that one feels in the rotting husk of an abandoned church, the site of faith perished. A hostility permeates the very air. It is not directed at Yuuri personally, but he has wandered into a place governed by casual maliciousness, and he can’t help but think that this is worse.

Innocence died screaming here, a long, long time ago.

It's a silent sense of peril, something nigh paradoxical. There is nothing evident here to be afraid of; the cold, the damp air and the leaves beneath his feet present no threat, and yet for that very reason, a chilling sense of dread rises in his stomach to perch just under his heart, rendering his pulse heightened and his chest tight. There is nothing visible to fear … but there must be something there, it can’t just be Yuuri, the trees, and the dead leaves. Whatever is here, what must be here, Yuuri cannot see it, cannot sense it. 

It has the advantage.

He casts his eyes over the area, peering between the bare, bleached trunks of stunted trees, turning his body to catch a glimpse of the space around him, all the while, panic rising in his throat. The moisture in the air is a fine but dense mist, so thick and white that Yuuri can only see a few yards ahead in any direction, all beyond is nothing but ominous, amorphous shapes immersed in fog. It is as if Yuuri’s surroundings were created in graphite with the aid of a blending stump …

Because they were, Yuuri realizes suddenly. He knows this place, knows the sinister feeling that this shrouded landscape is imbued with, because he has seen it before. On the wall of a strange Russian man’s pretentious parlor. 

He closes his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief for a moment, thinking that, perhaps, now that he knows his location, knows that this is merely a dream based on a graphite sketch, perhaps that knowledge will free him from the nightmarish scene. But it doesn’t. 

When he opens his eyes again, Yuuri is still there, still lost in the woods, still adrift in a sea of almost opaque fog, but now … he hears a susurrus, a rustling, a sound that is not of his own making. If he was ever alone here before, he isn’t now.

His head whips around, eyes straining to catch sight of something, anything in the gloom, but there’s still nothing, no shapes emerging from the mist. It is of no comfort, the lack of a visible threat, for the susurrus continues, quiet enough to strain the ears in the listening, but not enough to be identifiable. Whether it’s getting louder, or if the sound is just working its way inside his skull, Yuuri cannot tell, but his skin crawls and a shiver works its way up his spine, an entirely different sort of chill to that of the frigid forest air. 

All at once, he becomes aware that the sound is behind him and he turns, eyes desperately scanning the surrounding trees to see if anything lies behind them. There is nothing in the trees, but the leaves on the ground are moving without any apparent cause, and every instinct Yuuri has tells him to run. So he does.

No longer caring for caution, Yuuri races over the leaves, trampling the sparse undergrowth and fallen branches in his haste, frantic to get away. He looks behind himself, over his shoulder, only to see the rustling leaves keeping pace with him. The thing makes no effort to close the distance, intelligently aware that there is no need to hurry. The thing is patient. 

It can wait. 

Turning to look behind was a mistake, Yuuri discovers, as his foot catches on an exposed tree root and he finds himself flung forward onto the ground by his own built-up momentum, getting a musty mouthful of leaf mold and damp earth as he shouts in surprise and the pain of impact. Fingers digging into the soft ground, he gets his hands underneath himself so he can flip himself over, eyes wide as he scrambles backwards across the loam, smearing himself with mud and earning himself more than one scratch or bruise. But those things are unimportant as the rustling grows ever nearer.

In between the shifting leaves, Yuuri can see now the occasional glimpse of scales, cold and reptilian, slithering along the ground. He has but a moment to process this new realization before the serpent is upon him, emerging from the cover of forest debris at last to reveal itself in full, in all its gleaming, scaled horror. A massive snake.

Yuuri finds himself frozen in place under the cold, cutting glare of its slit-pupiled eyes. They hold a terrible intelligence in them, an indication that its animal nature is only but the surface of it, a veneer. Animal instinct, in which joy and hate play no part, only hunger does; it is so much more innocent than this. 

The serpent opens its great mouth to reveal a mouth with two great needle-sharp fangs, and unlike the dull drops of condensation that fall from the strands of Yuuri’s hair, the fangs gleam in this dim place, as if with a light of their own. 

The serpent lunges. The serpent bites. 

It stings, and then it doesn’t, as Yuuri’s veins begin to flow with venom. It’s odd. He can feel himself dying. The sensation in his body begins to fade, death creeping to him from his toes upward, and Yuuri is reminded then, of the death of Socrates as depicted in the Phaedo, which Yuuri had read once for some school project or another. Numbness had crept up the Socrates’s body while the man who’d administered the poison had wept in regret, and when the poison had reached Socrates’ heart, the great philosopher had died. 

It’s funny, the thoughts that come to a person at times such as this. 

Yuuri’s body grows numb and heavy, and at last, he closes his eyes, but the final thing he sees remains etched onto his retina until the until last of his consciousness leaves him.

Icy cold, slit-pupiled eyes. 

Yuuri dies there, on the forest floor.

And then he wakes up.


	4. Illustration: Viktor and the Serpent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, everyone, I've decided to start posting my illustrations of the fic as well as the actual written chapters, so consider this the first of several.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of written chapters, an announcement needs to be made by yours truly: 
> 
> I need to ask you, my dear readers, to remember that I have a life outside of this, and it can often be demanding. I am a full time college student, and I do not always have the time to write long chapters, or indeed to write at all, particularly when I am doing so for free. Please keep that in mind. 
> 
> I love hearing that you're excited for my new chapters, but I would ask you to please not repeatedly ask for more updates or longer chapters. I love this fic and my audience, so you may rest assured that I will abandon this fic, even if necessity forces me to write shorter chapters or write less often. This is not for anyone in particular, I just think it needs to be said.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri meets Viktor at Yakov's office and gets the run down of this new case ... that of the Chimera Killer ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting to be awkwardly long in comparison to previous chapters, so I thought I'd split it up and get this half of it to you faster. 
> 
> I also want to take the opportunity to thank my anonymous benefactor who bought me three coffees on Ko-fi. Thank you very much, kind stranger, I really appreciate your support!!!

Monday finds Yuuri with dark, purple-ish circles under his eyes and a dark mood to match, truly restful sleep having eluded him all weekend.

Dragging himself out of bed had been a struggle of gigantic proportions, and it was only with the greatest focus and effort that he could muster that he had managed to roll out from between his sweat-soaked sheets, sending himself sprawling onto his bedroom’s cold hardwood floor with an undignified “oompf.” He lay there for a few minutes, feeling the chill from the boards beneath him sink into his skin, feeling ultimately disenchanted with life, until, that is, his second alarm had gone off. 

His second alarm being the “if you don’t get out the door in five minutes you’ll be late to work” alarm. Fuck. What an excellent way to begin the day. 

He hadn’t done his laundry at all in the recent past, he just hadn’t been moved by the spirit to spend his limited free time on washing, so it took him the vast majority of those five minutes to simply locate a pair of not-too-dirty trousers, a pair of dark jeans that he suspected he’d worn the previous week, but certainly not for more than one day. 

He hopes. If he’s wrong, he can still hope that no one really notices. At least it’s better than turning up for work wearing a sheet tied around his waist in lieu of pants. 

As it is, he feels disgusting and grimy as he enters and immediately makes a bee-line for the communal coffee pot, having arrived to work just barely on time and absolutely desperate for some source of caffeine. He sways on his feet as he pours himself a Styrofoam cup of the stuff that can only charitably be called coffee. It’s more like brown, bitter, caffeinated water with grit in it, but it’s hot and can wake him up, which is all that Yuuri can really bring himself to care about at present.

Tipping his head back and draining the cup, Yuuri finds himself nearly choking to death as a voice startles him.

“Oh hey, Yuuri,” the voice belonging to Yuuri’s work friend Phichit calls out, “You look like you crawled out of a dumpster this morning. How’re you doing there?”

Phichit was always one to call things precisely as he sees them, a quality that Yuuri most certainly admires, so he really can’t be mad, even when Phichit tells him that he looks like he slept in a pile of garbage. If Phichit is saying it, it’s probably quite accurate. And it’s better to hear the news from a friend.

“Ugh,” Yuuri replies, still blinking hard to remove the sleep from his eyes, “my head feels like there’s been a hamster living in it.”

“As the proud father of several beautiful hamsters, I’m offended,” Phichit asserts, a hand pressed dramatically to his chest, his voice full of faux-indignation. 

“Of course, I intend no insult to your hamster children, Phichit, I apologize,” Yuuri assures him, trying to stifle a giggle.

“You better not,” Phichit playfully scolds before getting straight to business, “Anyway, Yakov’s waiting for you in his office, so you’d best get in there.”

He regards Yuuri’s look of utter displeasure and reluctance before adding, “Perhaps another cup of coffee would be in order before heading into the fray …”

Yuuri says nothing in reply, but he does nod emphatically and pour himself another cup, this time grabbing a lid before turning away from the coffeepot and from Phichit, and forcing himself to march over to Yakov’s office, feeling entirely unprepared for whatever fresh workplace hell awaits him today.

“Good luck,” he hears Phichit call out from behind him before making his way, presumably, back to the lab. 

Yuuri could use a little good luck. As it turns out, however, he has none.

He hesitates a moment, taking in the frosted glass of the door and the amorphous shapes beyond it, then pulls open the door and steps into Yakov’s office, fully expecting to immediately be rushed off to some other location, to look at a crime scene, to talk to a suspect, or something of that sort. He did not, however, expect to be greeted, not only by Yakov’s rather forced smile, but also by a dazzling grin and a pair of bright blue eyes. Mr. Nikiforov is there, seated in one of the chairs in front of Yakov’s desk, turning toward the door as Yuuri barges ungraciously in. 

Fuck. Yuuri had forgotten he’d be here today. 

Taking in the man’s tailored suit and well-polished shoes, Yuuri is all the more aware of how grubby he must seem wearing a pair of last week’s grimy jeans and a slightly ragged knit sweater under his heavily worn and lightly stained jacket. Before all this business with the dreams, the troubled sleep, Yuuri had been really quite tidy. Why couldn’t he have met Viktor back then? Hell, before he’d come to the U.S., back when he’d been living with his family in Japan, he’d been absolutely fastidious. It feels like somewhat of a personal failure that he hasn’t maintained that discipline, but work with the FBI is much more trying than he ever would have thought back then. 

But wishes are really quite useless, and as it is, Yuuri is trapped with the harsh reality that he looks he slept in a dumpster, and is shaking hands with a man who likely slept in silk pajamas on a king-sized bed, and who’s position it is to judge Yuuri’s state of well-being. He wouldn’t exactly call this a good start.

“Ah, Yuuri, there you are,” Yakov greets him with familiarity, not standing from his desk, at a direct counterpoint to Viktor, who does stand, turning to meet Yuuri with a warm handshake.

“It is good to see you again, Yuuri,” Viktor says before returning to his seat, as Yakov gestures to Yuuri to sit as well.

“Oh, yeah, uh, nice to see you too,” Yuuri answers with a significant lack of finesse as he moves to perch uncomfortably in the slightly squeaky office chair, wondering how Viktor has managed to both stand and sit without making a sound. 

It must be a supernatural ability, really. These chairs are awful.

“Ahem,” Yakov clears his throat in preparation to speak, “Yuuri, I expect Mr. Nikiforv gave you the basic rundown of what’s going on, but for the sake of clarity, I’ll give you the official overview.”

“Okay …” Yuuri says, accepting the proffered packet that Yakov pushes across his desk, observing from the corner of his eye as Viktor takes his own packet, flipping the catch open and pulling a stack of papers out.

“As you know, there’s been some talk in the papers about the recent murders in Maryland. Two victims: Sidney Pratt and Carl Elmann. They were found in their home, quite thoroughly dead, forced entry and an ensuing struggle evident. Died of exsanguination after some rather clumsy stabbing. Some partial prints were recovered from the scene, but we don’t have any matches in the system,” Yakov begins his explanation, taking up his usual habit of pacing the room while speaking.

Yuuri nods, flipping through a few pages of case notes.

“It was already a bit of a weird one from the first,” Yakov continues, “The victims had been dismembered and reassembled, body parts having been exchanged between the two. As you can see in the report, our killer clearly had quite a bit of time on his hands, and wasn’t very concerned about someone stumbling across the scene. Now, this took place in an urban area, and a crash was heard by some of the neighbors, but the sound was put down to the neighborhood’s stray cat and no one came to investigate …”

Yuuri and Viktor both just stare at Yakov, as if unable to distinguish whether the man is serious or not. Historically speaking though, Yakov was never much of a joker, and certainly not when talking about a case. In this case, the ridiculous would seem to prove true. A killer got away without any measure of stealth … because of a cat … well, that’s a personal first for Yuuri at least.

“Yeah, I don’t really know what to say about that one,” Yakov concluded the thought.

“Huh ...” Yuuri breathes.

“You got something to say Yuuri?” Yakov asks.

“Not really … it’s just kinda dumb, actually …” Yuuri says, “I mean, killing people loudly and messily in a heavily populated area doesn’t strike me as the method of someone who’s goal is to not get caught. It seems like it’s pretty much sheer coincidence that he wasn’t caught in the act. Let alone that this guy would be the right type of murderous weirdo to attract the attention of our department. Dismemberment or not, this guy’s an amateur. He’s not thinking clearly, let alone being clever. This looks like a rather pathetic dress rehearsal …”

“Funny you should say that,” Yakov interjects, with absolutely no humor in his voice, “because a week or so later, we got another one.”

He hands over a new packet of papers, which Yuuri and Viktor both take, opening them and beginning to rifle through the notes.

“Oh …” Yuuri exhales, “wow …”

“Indeed,” Viktor remarks, the first time he’s spoken since Yakov began his illustration of the events.

“As you can see,” Yakov continues, his face beginning to display a bit of concealed distaste, “our friend stepped up his game this time. Three victims, all disassembled and reassembled, but this time with animal parts added into the mix, replacing some of the human parts, which, by the way, are missing. And this time he even moved internally, swapping organs as well as limbs and the like.”

“The Chimera,” Yuuri breathes before pausing, then grimacing, “Wait, he kept bits?”

“That or he threw them away somewhere that we haven’t found yet, but I’m inclined to think he kept trophies.” Yakov confirms.

“And we are certain that both these attacks were perpetrated by the same individual?” Viktor asks, slightly startling both Yakov and Yuuri, who’d grown accustomed to the man’s silence, punctuated by one-word responses.

“The similar ways in which the bodies were dismembered, the stitching on their reassembly, as well as the method of entry into the home and the method of killing all point to the same person being at both sites,” Yakov explains, “However, we don’t have any of the things we’d like to have to assist in connecting the two events, such as fingerprints, loose hairs, etcetera …”

“You think he wore gloves this time, but not the last?” Yuuri asks, to which Yakov nods, “Well, going by how not-careful he was last time, I don’t think he was wearing gloves out of caution. It’s a messy job; he probably just didn’t want to get too grubby.”

“Oddly fastidious for a guy who tears people apart to clumsily put them back together,” Yakov remarks, clearly skeptical.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Yakov,” Yuuri says, “People are pretty self-contradictory. Phichit is a firm believer in everyone eating healthy, gourmet meals, and yet I’ve never once seen him actually cook. And he’s addicted to butterscotch pudding, which is arguably worse than pineapple on pizza.”

“That is fair, humans are notoriously contrary creatures,” Viktor says, nodding in agreement, “Although I'm not sure what to say of Yuuri's conclusion on pizza, it is true that almost everyone holds at least one belief that is directly contradictory to another held belief.”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility that this guy might enjoy making gory messes without wanting to get messy himself,” Yuuri adds, looking to Yakov, “That or you’re wrong, and the two events were not in fact the work of one killer, which is what I’m leaning towards at this moment.”

Yakov just regards them both doubtfully, clearly unconvinced and slightly put off by Yuuri’s insinuation that his conclusions, while arrived at by methodical thinking based upon the evidence available, might be inaccurate. 

“You know,” Yuuri says, slightly annoyed at this point, “I could tell you a lot more if I could, say, actually take a look at the crime scene.”

“I’m glad you’ve said so, because that’s exactly where you’re headed now,” Yakov says briskly, clearly having little patience for Yuuri’s sass.

“Oh, what joy,” Yuuri sighs, finding himself slightly regretting his earlier tone, but not enough to stop using it. 

“Indeed, enjoy your drive, it won’t be short. You’ll be checking out the first crime scene, then heading right over to the second, so enjoy eating your egg Mcmuffin in the car,” Yakov effectively shuts him down, waving Yuuri towards the door with a certain finality that Yuuri didn’t feel worth the trouble of challenging. 

Yuuri stands from his seat with a wearied sigh, shuffling towards the door with little grace, hearing the sharp sound of Viktor stepping lightly behind him, making curiously little noise for such a tall man. They leave Yakov’s office and exit the building in relative silence, punctuated only by Viktor quickly passing Yuuri to hold the door open for him, and irritatingly gentlemanly gesture. 

As the walk out into the sun, the light falls upon them in a soft grey, filtered by a cover of clouds, a morning chill clinging to them even as the sun moves higher in the sky.

“So, uh,” Yuuri begins, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, “You can ride with me if you want, just let me go clear out the passenger seat …”

Yuur makes the offer desperately hoping that Viktor will refuse. Yuuri’s car still has at least one fast food bag in the backseat, he knows that it must smell like old Burger King, although Yuuri himself has become rather acclimatized to it, and it’s not something he thinks a man like Viktor would appreciate.

“I don’t mind driving,” Viktor answers charitably, and Yuuri can’t help but suspect that the man can feel Yuuri’s misgivings and is acting accordingly. 

Thank you, merciful Zeus.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” Yuuri says, visibly relieved, as he moves to follow Viktor to the other end of the parking lot.

He’s given slight pause however, as Viktor walks up to a sleek, deep emerald green Porsche, pulling out a key fob and unlocking the doors with a brief "beep-beep" sound, then gesturing to Yuuri to get in on the passenger side. This is too nice, to fancy. This is not in Yuuri's line. Yuuri is about to climb into a who knows how expensive car, wearing a pair of nasty-ass last week’s jeans, and he is entirely out of his depth …

He still climbs in, feigning a casual air, keeping his anxiety to himself, gingerly making sure that the door doesn’t hit the car next to it, and making as little contact with the seats as is possible when one is sitting in a car. He probably looks awkward as hell, he thinks, and his thought is pretty much instantly confirmed when Viktor looks over at him from across the center console.

“You needn’t be nervous Yuuri, I shan’t interfere in your business. I’ll only be there in case you need me as support,” the man says reassuringly, glancing over to Yuuri with an expression that Yuuri cannot quite discern, unsure whether he’s seeing compassion, pity, or something else entirely.

“That’s not it,” Yuuri begins before he thinks better of it and corrects himself, “No, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Very well,” Viktor replies starting up the car and turning to reverse his way out of the parking spot.

He has something else to say, Yuuri can tell, but he’s not saying it. Yuuri isn’t sure whether that makes him happy, or irritated. It seems to be a growing theme of his and Yuuri’s budding work relationship, this uncertainty.

An uncomfortable silence fills the car as they leave the parking lot and get onto the road, the only sound being that of the pavement beneath the tires and the low hum of the engine …


	6. Illustration: Serpentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's a second illustration, a reworking, if you will, of the first one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I should post this extra illustration, since I drew it already. I hope to have another proper chapter up soon, since the school quarter is almost over and I'll then have the winter break to write as I like.
> 
> Side note: Guess who's birthday is today? It's mine! It's irrelevant to the fic, but I'm excited anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri has another nightmare and wakes up in the passenger seat of Viktor's car, having arrived at the crime scene. Upon witnessing Yuuri do what he does best, Viktor finds his interest piqued all the more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, everyone. Perhaps going to college full-time and having four long-running fics going at the same time is not the perfect recipe for quick updates? I am Sisyphus, and fic writing is my rock.

It’s dark where Yuuri is. 

How long has he been here? He couldn’t possibly say. There’s no light to indicate a time of day, so he exists in a state of limbo, between the night and day, between alive and not. It’s cold here, in the dark, and he has the sense that, wherever he is, he is totally alone.

It is a relief for a moment, the realization that he is alone. Solitude means that he is not in danger from any unseen beast creeping in the darkness, that nothing is lurking near him in a huddle of fangs, claws, and ill-intent. Frost does not bloom across his skin, he hears no rustling among dead leaves, and the air doesn’t taste of leaf mold and wet earth. This is not the pale forest in which the serpent dwells. He shouldn’t be afraid, there’s quite literally nothing here, and yet a cold, confused sense of panic is rising in his chest. 

He’s alone. 

He’s alone in the dark.

He feels like a child again all of a sudden. All at once it returns to him, the feeling of being alone on the playground after sunset, waiting for someone to pick him up as the doubt that they will grows in the back of his mind. Filled with a fear that is likely unwarranted, and all the more terrifying for it. It’s an old, familiar fear, one that has followed him his whole life. It isn’t the fear of the dark.

It’s the fear of being alone, of loneliness. Somehow that’s worse. Because the threat lingers, the threat of being solitary, of never having anyone really know you, of never knowing anyone else, not truly. It follows you around, standing by like the ghost at the banquet, all your life, and it gets worse in the dark of the night when there’s nothing to distract you from your shame and your fear.

This isn’t a nightmare, not in the traditional sense. It has no plot as such,  merely an overwhelming, all-consuming sense of unrest, of dread. A horrifying lack of sentiment that sends self-manufactured chills through his bones.

His heart rate rises higher, his breathing speeds up, a sensation of cold spreading in his digits, creeping up his limbs. It is not the same bleak coldness of the serpent’s poison, but it might as well be for all it terrifies. 

He’s alone, alone in the dark, and while the darkness prevents him from seeing with his open eyes, he’s still somehow aware of his vision fading, blurring, as his lungs scream for air and his heart beats all the harder against the lack of oxygen. Just as everything goes dark for real …

He wakes up to a foreign hand shaking him by the shoulder. Making a somewhat embarrassing snorting sound, Yuuri jerks upright from where he’s fallen asleep, resting his head against the chilled glass of the passenger side window of Viktor’s car. His cheek has gone numb from the cold glass and he’s almost certain he’s been drooling a little, and probably on said window. 

“Hnwhat?” he asks, oh so eloquently, trying to regain full consciousness.

“Are you alright?” Viktor asks, apparently repeating himself, although Yuuri hadn’t been aware of the first or indeed second times the question may have been posed.

“Oh,” Yuuri inhales deeply, reaching up to rub his eyes with both hands, attempting to clear the sleep and the last remnants of the nightmare-induced dread, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Were you dreaming?” Viktor questions him, once again being unsettlingly, and in this case irritatingly, perceptive.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Yuuri dismisses the concern immediately, sitting up and trying to appear unconcerned in the hope that Viktor may drop the subject, not really keen on whatever pity or funky dream-analysis bullshit might be coming his way.

“I understand why you might be reluctant,” Viktor says calmly, withdrawing his hand, “perceived interference would not, I imagine, be welcome. I do hope, however, that I can one day gain your trust.”

He moves to extricate himself from his seatbelt, as yet still fastened, and opens the door, stepping out lithely, with customary grace. Yuuri can practically feel ice crawling across the shining paint of the car, tendrils of frost extending out from Viktor’s touch like curling ferns on the forest floor. It’s almost enough to induce a shiver.

“It’s not that,” Yuuri protests, himself exiting the vehicle, suddenly feeling like a bit of a dick, “I just don’t want to bother you with stupid, little stuff like my nightmares.”

“I sincerely wish to be of help to you, so it is no trouble,” Viktor assures, with a slight pause before continuing, “So they happen often then?”

“What?”

“The nightmares.”

“Uh, what qualifies as often?” Yuuri asks, only partially aware that he’s stalling.  
It’s a habit of his, not necessarily a good one, but nevertheless hard to discard. Viktor just looks as him, a blank expression that Yuuri might have to admit is oh so slightly intimidating. Not just that, but … there’s something about Viktor, something that makes Yuuri want Viktor to like him. He’d seen it in action at the party at which he and Viktor had first met, the way that the man draws others to them, makes them care for what he might think. He’s aware of the effect, understands how it works, and yet, Yuuri finds, that does nothing to decrease its effectiveness or efficiency. He cares despite himself.

“Yeah, pretty often,” he amends in an attempt to appease.

“Have you tried anything to help improve your sleep?” Viktor asks, stepping back and gesturing to Yuuri to exit the vehicle, as they have evidently reached their destination.

“What, you mean like meditation?” Yuuri says, seeking clarification, “Or like medicine?”

“Quite literally anything,” Viktor answers, still without any proper facial expression that Yuuri can discern, and yet he still gets the impression that Viktor is growing unamused with him. It’s either real, or it’s anxiety-induced, and Yuuri really wishes he could truly tell the difference. 

“Uh … NyQuil?” Yuuri supplies, and pitiful though it may be, it is the best he can come up with, “Sorry, I haven’t actually had the chance to try much of anything.”

As much as he hates the disturbances to his sleep, he hasn’t tried much to remedy it. He’s been advised, at various times, to try to establish a more regular sleep schedule, to try to eat better, and to take the time to meditate, all of which his job made essentially impossible, at least to keep up with for any meaningful length of time. Relaxation in general was also pretty much off the table from the beginning.

Viktor appears to consider Yuuri for a moment, an almost calculating expression, though Yuuri would rather not use that exact word; it feels a bit uncharitable to apply “calculating” to someone who’s just trying to help and who has been nothing but decent ever since their meeting.

“Would you consider hypnosis?” the man asks, and to be fair, it’s something that Yuuri hasn’t been suggested before, so he gets points for originality.

“I can’t say that I’ve thought of it,” Yuuri ventures, uncertain.

“It really is an impressive vehicle for relaxation for those who otherwise find relaxing to be difficult.”

“Really?”

“Well,” Viktor elaborates, “it does depend quite a lot upon the individual. If a person is not susceptible to being hypnotized, it will not work, however, if they are susceptible, they may find the treatment quite effective.”

“Lots of people go in for that, do they?” Yuuri asks, trying not to sound overtly skeptical. 

“More than you might think,” Viktor answers with another of his little, cryptic smiles, “Do you think you would consider it?”

“I mean, I guess so,” Yuuri hesitates, “I’m not going to lie, it takes a bit of wrapping my head around it, but if it helps, it helps.”

“If you do decide you’d want to give it a try, I’d be happy to help you,” Viktor offers, the very spirit of goodwill in a tailored suit.

“Well, thanks,” Yuuri replies, genuinely grateful, if still somewhat skeptical. 

“You are quite welcome. And now,” Viktor sighs, a display of regret, “I’m afraid it is time to enter the fray.”

Yuuri casts his eyes about to their surroundings, which in his drowsiness, he’d yet to investigate. They’d parked a ways down the street from the house, but Yuuri would have recognized it from the crime scene photos even if the place hadn’t been bedecked in crime scene tape and lit by the flashing of red and blue lights from the police cars standing sentinel. 

It was an average looking place, another placid little suburb, much like the location of the first murder in what Yuuri suspected would become a series. Beige houses, all very much alike, stood in row upon row with tidy little streets between them, bordered by small but orderly lawns. All quite respectable, but demonstrating almost no individual personalities from any individual house. There were probably rules for that sort of thing, Yuuri thought, some sort of neighborhood association that kept the place respectable by keeping it utterly boring. 

There won’t be anything with potential to offend if there isn’t anything to capture the attention in the slightest. What sins must hide behind those respectable, regulation doors ...

This is why Yuuri prefers to live away from the suburbs; there’s no one looking to run his life, at least not when it comes to his home decor. He can have at least one thing in his life that is genuinely under his control, even if it hasn’t felt much like that recently. 

He should really do the laundry … and vacuum, and do the dishes …  it just seems harder to do than it used to. At least there’s no one to yell at him about it. 

He approaches the house with Viktor acting as his silent shadow, showing both their credentials to the police officers guarding the entryway, who had been informed that Yuuri would be coming. They seem a bit put off at the idea of him, even as they wave him and Viktor through to the front door. Perhaps it was what they’d been told of him that rendered them so cold, or perhaps it was their duty of guarding a murder house. It couldn’t be the best of duties.

The side-eye he receives as he passes, however, tell a somewhat different story. He wonders what particular rumors these officers have heard. There are likely some new and interesting ones going about; there always are. 

Upon entering, Yuuri is struck with a feeling of emptiness so weighty that he feels it as if it were a physical sensation, something like gravity pressing him into the ground. Perhaps Viktor can sense it too, or perhaps he can simply sense the effect that is being had on Yuuri, because a gentle touch comes to rest upon his shoulder, that of Viktor’s hand. It leaves after a moment, not wanting to overstay its welcome, and while Yuuri appreciates the kindness, he also appreciates that Viktor doesn’t presume to leave his hand upon Yuuri’s shoulder. 

Emotional support is nice, but this is the very heart of Yuuri’s work, and he doesn’t need any distractions now. He doesn’t need himself even, not now … because he’s about to see through someone else’s eyes. 

He turns his head to give Viktor a small, grateful smile, but doesn’t meet his eyes. Viktor hasn’t seen Yuuri do this before, even if it has been described to him. It can’t be said how what Viktor may think of Yuuri will change after he sees Yuuri in action.

He pulls out a few pictures from the packet of crime scene photos he’d taken with him to visit the place, flicking through them with eyes he tries desperately to keep objective. The despair, fear, and grief of the victims isn’t what he needs right now, that he must lay aside as he studies the images of  bodies that had one been people. The discovery of the murder now a few days past, the bodies had been moved to the morgue. Ordinarily, Yuuri would’ve gone there first, but after his morning antagonizing of Yakov, the man had been in a vindictive mood, eager to send Yuuri on a long, unpleasant journey to punish him for his insolence. Yuuri might resent it, but on second thought, putting a bit of distance between himself and Yakov wouldn’t be a half bad idea.  
.  
He could go to the morgue later. For now, he could observe the space in which their lives had come to an end , with the photos to help, and could sink into the mind that had created this scene, like an ancient mammoth being slowly submerged into a tar pit, the thick, oozing blackness seeping into him, filling his mouth, his nose, his eyes …  

Down and down he goes, sinking into tar until it isn’t even tar anymore, just a cold, black mass, the chilling terror of vacuum. And then he comes out the other side … as a different person.

“This is a mantle I took up, not out of my desire to, but out of necessity. This was not my work in the beginning, although I did know the original artist. I respected them, for a time, but it grew clear to me that what they created did not do justice to their materials. 

It was cheap. Unbefitting. 

I could do it so much better.”

Unseen to Yuuri, Viktor takes in this scene. In an unconscious motion, one born of habit, he brings a hand up, pensively resting a finger against his lips.

This Yuuri … he might be genuinely interesting …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viktor has been skirting the edges of Yuuri's life for a little while now, and now he's considering getting more deeply involved. This could prove to be a worthwhile distraction.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor observes Yuuri at work and it gives him some ideas ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry for the long wait, you guys. My life has been a bit nuts of late, by which I mean for the last several months, what with university classwork, Sakura Con, and trying to arrange my study abroad in France for the coming year. 
> 
> I also found myself disenchanted with my creative pursuits there for a while, a little depressed about it, and I couldn't bring myself to write or draw for a long time. But I'm feeling a bit better now, so you needn't worry.
> 
> Long story short, I've been awfully distracted from writing, but I'm back for a bit.

He falls out of a thick, syrupy, molasses-like blackness and lands on a different set of feet, and when he opens his eyes, they are not Yuuri’s, they are those of the Chimera Killer. He stalks forward through the hallway, now sure of his footing, for he’s been here before, and when he ascends the stairs he keeps to the edges, next the the walls, where his movements are less likely to cause the wood to creak.

Viktor watches him go, observing the way Yuuri moves like a panther in shadow, quite unlike himself, and after a moment’s consideration, he does not follow Yuuri’s path but instead steps forward, bringing his polished shoe to rest heavily upon the first step, eliciting a resounding squeal of wood on wood, but curiously, Yuuri doesn’t appear to notice, continuing on as if in a trance. Perhaps he is. He follows the man into an upstairs room, one that he recognizes from the packet of pictures Yakov had furnished them with; this is the room in which the bodies had been displayed.

All the most important evidence had been removed before he and Yuuri had been invited onto this case, but telltale signs remained. Dried blood, some markers left there by the forensics people, a scratch in the wood flooring. He stands by as Yuuri comes to stand in the middle of the room, slightly startled, though he makes an effort not to show it, when the man suddenly appears to leave his strange state.

“Photos,” Yuuri demands coolly and Viktor, who has been holding the tragic packet, passes it over.

Viktor stands quietly behind Yuuri, looking over his shoulder and wondering what it is exactly that Yuuri sees through his dark eyes. 

It’s truly fascinating how much eyes have to do with one’s expressions. One can smile of course, but if it doesn’t reach the eyes, the affectation is all for naught, a mere parody of true emotion. That is the true talent of all genuinely good liars: they tell falsehoods with their eyes as well as their faces and words, soothing the quiet, doubting part of even the most gullible mind, that which whispers of insincerity. It’s an insidious, instinctive thing, and it can be the ruin of any clever lie, if one cannot learn to fool it. 

Viktor took great care in his bid to master the art.

Yuuri’s eyes say nothing. He is a portal for his own imagination, but in the moment, the man’s eyes are empty, devoid of clinging compassion or even casual malice. He channels some other being, while he himself steps aside. Does he ever get lost, Viktor wonders, on the way back?

Yuuri sticks out his hand, abruptly, handing the packet of photos back to Viktor without looking. His eyes are closed, but Viktor watching the movement behind the lids to see it rapid, almost frantic, the eyes of someone observing a scene, taking in every detail. He’s watching something from behind his eyelids, following actions performed some days ago as if they were still in progress, as if he himself bore witness. 

He appears to snap back out of it, swaying on his feet, shaking lightly, trembling like a leaf in the wind. His eyes appear unfocused, much like the eyes of a person recently roused from sleep, still half trapped in their dreams, even as the waking world rushes back to them. He’s breathing a bit heavily, as though panicked … or perhaps, Viktor muses, watching the frantic rise and fall of Yuuri’s shoulders carefully, perhaps in response to a sort of thrill?

“Take me to the other house,” Yuuri says abruptly, sharply, startling the other man from his contemplations, although Viktor detects no disrespect in his tone, merely an intense focus. 

Were he not so curious, he might have been slightly offended, but as it is, he simply moves to comply, stepping aside to allow Yuuri passage down the stairs. On the drive over, Yuuri is quiet, only responding when Viktor directly asks something of him, and even then his answers tend towards the monosyllabic. 

The site of the second murder is much like the first, as far as Viktor can see. With the bodies having been removed and taken to the morgue, all that is left is another house in another urban neighborhood, very little left to tell the tale of what horrors had taken place in these rooms. There are, of course, the small differences, things that one would expect to see differing between any two houses. Some small differences in architecture, in the layout of the house, in the rooms that the occupants had decided to use for certain purposes. Different pictures hung up in the hallway, different decor. All different, and yet the same kind of predictable. The stories the house told were banal ones, not the sort to capture Viktor’s interest, although perhaps Yuuri saw something else where Viktor saw mediocrity concentrated. 

But it is not until they are leaving the site of the second killing that Yuuri speaks properly once more. 

“Yakov is wrong. These are two separate killers,” he says, his voice wavering, indifference and some kind of intense compassion warring under Yuuri’s larynx. 

“How can you tell?” Viktor questions him, more interested in Yuuri’s explanation than in whatever outcome it could bring to the case.

“The general method may be the same but the feeling behind it is wrong,” Yuuri asserts, seeming almost angry, although once again it appears that his ire is not directed at Viktor himself, “The first was sloppy, not much more sophisticated than a child’s finger-painting; it was someone trying something new and not being very good at it.”

Is that anger directed at a killer? Or is it directed inward? Or do the two blend together somewhere in Yuuri’s head? 

“Oh?” Viktor prompts, anticipating more. 

“It’s very possible that the first killer had never done such a thing before, not on this sort of scale, not this experimental. The other though … he’s resentful. He feels as though the first killer wasted valuable materials; he thinks he can do better … so he did,” Yuuri pauses, slightly short on breath, “The first was childish, playing at some sort of haphazard Frankenstein’s monster idea, but the second wished to elevate it, to make something more original, not a rehash of some movie monster.”

He chuckles, an expression of some sort of morbid humor.

“In his own twisted way, he does value human life, enough to take over the work.” he looks to Viktor, “He doesn’t care for people as people, but he loves his art supplies.”

“An interesting perspective,” Viktor opines, an eyebrow quirking in a practiced gesture, “though I suppose it is logical, in its own, albeit distorted, way.”

“That’s the thing. Every ridiculous or horrible thing makes sense with the right perspective … I mean, the wrong perspective.”

“Right and wrong are often a matter of perspective,” Viktor points out, and the silence he receives in return illuminates more than Yuuri likely intends it to.

“So,” he continues, voice loud in the quiet that surrounds them, “what became of our first killer then, if he did not undertake the second artwork?”

“Um …” Yuuri hesitates, not in a way that suggests he’s at a loss for what to say, but in a way that implies he knows what to say but is unsure of whether or not to share it, “I think you’ll find him at the second crime scene.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah … he was made into a chimera,” Yuuri mutters, “He was unworthy as an artist, but still valuable as materials.”

“An artist becoming another artist’s artwork,” Viktor muses, “Interesting.”

“I guess,” Yuuri grudgingly agrees. 

Is he reluctant to agree because he genuinely does not find that sort of thing interesting, leaning toward appalling, or does he hesitate because he knows that he ought not to find it interesting? Viktor expects that it is the latter, in which case there is something that lurks beneath the surface of this anxiety-ridden man, something that is worth the time and effort of uncovering, something that hides beneath the veneer that society has forced him to create. 

Something beautifully wild and ferocious, something that should be out in the world, not locked up in chains of self-doubt and self-loathing. 

Viktor will set it free. The world, and Yuuri himself, will be the better for it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri muses on his current circumstances, and what impact Viktor may have as a new presence in his life, teetering between optimism and despair. When he gets home, he has another dream, from which he is roused by an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm back with an update within a reasonable timeframe! Please be proud of me, I'm usually terrible with this sort of thing.  
> Speaking of being terrible at updating regularly, I want to thank you all for sticking with me, even as I disappear for weeks or months at a time. I really appreciate your continued support!

In the car, as Viktor drove him back to his own car, Yuuri found himself nodding off again, a different sort of exhaustion coming over him than the kind born of a lack of sleep. He wasn’t sleepy, he was tired, a piece of beach glass knocked about in angry waves, worn smooth enough to fit in someone’s decorative pond, but in doing so, his edges were being chiseled off, sandpapered to that acceptable smoothness. It was like being rubbed raw, scrubbed with steel wool inside his head.

And people wonder why he seems so tense.

He doesn’t remember the ride back very well, and the time spent checking back in with Yakov feels more like a dream than getting yelled at by a man with greying hair and lots of opinions that he’s unwilling to concede. He didn’t seem to like the conclusions Yuuri drew, but Yuuri’s too tired to care, especially since he’s pretty damn sure that Yakov will feel differently once more information comes in. It will back Yuuri, and Yakov won’t apologize, and history will once again repeat itself.

The only real difference is Viktor. The man is reluctant to let Yuuri drive off on his own after he has to wake a rather foggy Yuuri who’s collapsed against the passenger side door when they get back to the parking lot, but his concerns are waved away. He expresses that he’s more than willing to drive Yuuri all the way home, exhausted as he is, but Yuuri tells him he can’t accept.

It’s not because he feels perfectly awake, certainly not that, nor is it that he’d rather not trouble the man, although he does have some fear of imposing. It’s that, even if Viktor has seen the outside of Yuuri’s house, possibly when the party invitation was delivered, he’d rather the man didn’t see inside, definitely not so early in their acquaintanceship. He’d rather not think of the impression his home, as it is now, might make.  
Yuuri tries to avoid being gruff with it as best he can, but he’s not sure how successful it is, even as he’s climbing into his own drivers seat, buckling up, and starting off for home. His dog will be missing him.

In the rear view mirror, he sees Viktor watch him drive off, not getting back into his own elegant vehicle until Yuuri turns out of the lot and heads down the road. It’s only then that he turns away, hair and coat tossed by a light breeze, and slides back in the door of the Porsche. 

Yuuri’s mind is cast back to Viktor’s home, to what Yuuri had seen of it during that dinner party that now seems absurdly distant for something so recent. The house had been lit up then, abuzz with cultured, sociable activity, a flurry of sleek suits and glittering dresses, full to bursting with the illusions, desires, and ambitions of a crowd of people. It’s curiously hard, at first, to imagine what such a house would be like when the glitter and gossip are gone. Does it go dark when the candlelight flickers out? Do the shadows loom big in the corners of Viktor’s dining room? Does his parlor feel empty, full of naught but silence and lifeless furniture? Is it as quiet in that opulent abode as it is in Yuuri’s creaky, isolated house?

Is Viktor lonely when he goes home?

Yuuri shakes his head, consciously focusing again on the road. That’s not the sort of thing he really ought to be wondering about his new coworker, let alone one who is quietly in charge of making sure Yuuri doesn’t fall off his rocker. Besides, it can sometimes become so difficult to distinguish the feelings he picks up from others from his own feelings, such that he ends up just projecting them, seeing himself in other people rather than the people themselves. 

Viktor does, for all his flitting about as a social butterfly at high-class parties, seem to be the solitary type, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s lonely. Many people live solitary lives and find themselves perfectly content. But Yuuri, though he hates to admit it, is lonely. He’s got his dog, of course, Vicchan, and he loves the little guy to bits, but try as he might to ignore it, there is a difference between the company of dogs and the company of people. 

Dogs are safer, for one, less stressful. They don’t care if you forgot to brush your hair, or if you look like you haven’t slept in a week, and if it looks like when you last slept, you did so face down on the couch rather than in a bed like a civilized person. Dogs love you even if you’re awkward at parties, terrible on dates, and pitiable at making new friends. Frankly, it’s a miracle Yuuri even has Phichit to count as a friend; he can’t fathom why Phichit puts up with him, let alone acts friendly. 

Perhaps that’s why Viktor is so perplexing. He’s a new presence, he hasn’t had the time Phichit has to get used to Yuuri, nor does he seem to have Phichit’s certain brand of enthusiasm, and yet he wants to be … friendly? Why would he want to do that? 

There are several people in this world who like Yuuri, and he knows that. Even Yakov, grumpy as he can be, is reasonably fond of Yuuri, but with Yakov, much like with most other people who like Yuuri, there is a certain distance reserved between them. They’re much more involved with the flat, convenient facsimiles of Yuuri that they’ve constructed based on their perceptions and biases than they are with the man himself.

He’s less of a person, more a part of the scenery, a prop, maybe sometimes elevated to the position of a supporting character. They don’t mean anything by it, they don’t intend him any harm, nor are they really even aware that they’re doing it. He’s useful, not lovable, that's just how it is. 

It’s somehow both a comfort and a punch to the gut.

Hoping that Viktor will see him without the filter of pity, concern, and an unintentional distancing seems like some sort of self-sabotage. Another punch to the gut, just one that hasn’t arrived yet, even as it is anticipated. 

Yuuri kind of hates himself for the way he sets himself up for failure, even as he’s aware of it. He just can’t stop. If he does, he’ll start to question why he’s around at all, and that’s an entirely different, much more slippery slope … It’s hard to separate himself from his own emotions, when emotions, desires, and motivations are his entire stock and trade. 

He arrives home without any real, clear memories of the drive back. It’s not an unusual thing, Yuuri spends much of his life outside work on autopilot. An occupational hazard, perhaps.

He doesn’t bother making something to eat for himself. He feeds Vicchan, let’s him out, plays with him for a bit, but he still feels a bit hazy, even as Vicchan jumps and runs about with the kind of innocent, wild abandon that only dogs have. It’s endearing, warming Yuuri’s heart, but the warmth feels a bit shallow, like it can’t quite reach to the center of him. There’s some sort of chill inside him that resists the warmth, even as it craves it. 

He feels guilty for feeling like that, sure that Vicchan can tell he’s not all there for their playtime, even if the dog seems to be behaving entirely normally. Dogs have such low expectations, how can he fail to work up the enthusiasm that Vicchan needs? It’s just another small defeat.

When he falls into bed that night, he’s gone a bit numb. He’s probably hungry, but he can’t really tell, all he can feel is the distinct lack of feeling. A hollowness. He falls asleep hating the way that he hopes he won’t dream tonight. 

It’s setting himself up for failure. But he has to hope anyway. He has to.

...

He cannot speak. He cannot expand his ribs with a breath of air, nor move his arms or legs. He cannot turn his head to look about, nor can he blink, his eyes eternally open, fixed upon the distant horizon.  
Yuuri is frozen, as if petrified, trapped in stone. He tries to cry out, to alert someone, anyone, to his state, but his lips cannot open, even as his jaw strains to pry them apart, itself inert. A voice trapped inside a throat with no means of escape, able only to scream internally, doomed to silent suffering.

His solid eyelids are held open, the very orb of his eye turned crystalline, unmoving. He exists as if outside of time, but he watches as years go by around him, a helpless witness to the turning of the world. He is not alive, but nor is he dead. He is marble. He never lived at all.

He waits decades upon decades, watching the sun and the tides rise and fall, watching the land erode and be replaced by new soil as plants wither, die, and decay at his feet, and eventually, the marble he is made of begins to crumble, eroded by the sun, wind, and the cruel, grating passage of time. The rain falls acidic, fizzing upon contact and melting his stone skin away, leaving him one giant open wound, raw and exposed to the air, which itself carries the sting of pollutants that hang poisonous upon the breeze. 

His arms outstretched, the pocked marks of raindrops, once no more than freckled marks upon his surface, become so profuse that there is nothing more to hold his hands together, and his fingers fall away, what was once strong stone crumbling like chalk. The stumps of his arms remain reaching out, cracks running through them, spreading centimeter by centimeter, day by day, until they too fall away, piece by piece, leaving him armless, as if he were a sad, weathered parody of the Venus de Milo. 

No historians will write about him, praising his form, admiring the shape of him. They will not soliloquize about the sadness in his eyes, the melancholy curve of his outstretched stumps of arms, nor about the quiet, helpless anger that tugs at the corner of his mouth. They won’t write about him, falling to pieces at the edge of a long-disused field, because this kind of tragic decay is too disordered to be beautiful, to catch the eye of the beholder. 

It doesn’t enchant. It inspires pity, if it is even noticed at all.

Yuuri is jerked abruptly awake by a knocking sound. It takes him a moment to comprehend what is happening, but as he blinks repeatedly, willing himself conscious, he realizes that there is someone at his door. He half-falls out of bed and stumbles out of the bedroom, through the living room, and to the front door, opening it and squinting blearily against the morning light that streams in through the opening, framing the figure that had been knocking.

“Good morning, Yuuri,” says Viktor, smiling more brightly than anyone has the right to so early in the day, “May I come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have fun whale-spotting the enormous aquatic beasts of my own personal issues swimming through the waters of this fic. 
> 
> A bit unrelated, but I have like 5000 words of a future chapter of this fic written, I just have to write my way to that point. It takes place once Viktor and Yuuri have become much closer, once the romantic element of their relationship has begun to rear its head. Look forward to romance, an uncomfortable social gathering, dancing, and some good old-fashioned murder with motive. You'll know what I'm talking about when we get there, and slowly but surely, we are getting there.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor and Yuuri have breakfast together, and while Viktor questions him about his nightmares, Yuuri takes a little peek into his new therapist's head as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I am back from my vacation in Singapore and back on my bullshit. 
> 
> Edit: I went to the ER cuz I really hecked up my leg, so the next update of this might be a little later than intended. Sorry y'all

Viktor stands at the door, as frustratingly composed as he always is, framed in the pale yellow light of the early morning. His hair is perfectly coiffed, but it’s his chosen ensemble of clothing for the day that snags Yuuri’s wavering attention. His suit, some no doubt tragically expensive, immaculately tailored plaid thing, is something that Yuuri couldn’t even begin to imagine on any other individual, no matter how wealthy. It’s one thing to be wealthy, Yuuri supposes, and another thing entirely to have the boundless self-confidence to pull off a full plaid, blue suit.

Blue like his eyes, Yuuri thinks, thoughts still somewhat blurry from sleep, before he realizes that Viktor is talking again.

“Yuuri? Are you alright? You don’t seem entirely present this morning.”

“Oh, sorry,” Yuuri apologizes, shaking his head as if the movement could cast sleep from him like some bothersome insect, “I was sleeping really hard, I guess.”

“Did you dream?” Viktor asks, voice soft but insistent, never the one to let something go once revealed.

Yuuri considers lying, more out of habit than anything else. When people ask him about himself, generally speaking, they’re more of rhetorical questions than actual sincere inquiries. “How are you” isn’t a real question in the traditional sense, no one is expecting a genuine answer, no, the appropriate response is a simple “I’m fine,” regardless of whether or not that answer is true. When most people ask about Yuuri, they don’t expect his honest answer. They expect something brief, something uncomplicated, something shallow enough to be comfortable, even while creating the illusion of intimacy. 

A socially acceptable lie.

That being said, that’s “most people,” and Viktor is certainly not most people, of that Yuuri is sure. Yuuri may not understand Viktor’s intentions, but he knows enough to know that when the man goes to the effort of asking a question, he’s looking for a real answer, not the vague niceties that society at large requires. Indeed, were he to receive such a nicety, Yuuri got the distinct impression the man would be disappointed, if not offended.

“Uh, yeah,” Yuuri admits, relenting.

“Perhaps I could come inside and we could have breakfast and discuss it?” Viktor suggests, holding up a picnic basket that Yuuri hadn’t yet noticed. 

Yuuri simply nods and steps aside, allowing Viktor entry to his home, only to realize a second or two late that his house is an utter sty and he’s pretty sure that there are dirty jeans lying on the living room floor. He chases after the man who, with his customary surety, negotiates the assortment of things scattered throughout Yuuri’s front room and makes his way towards the kitchen, where he appears to be setting up shop with a small delicatessen on Yuuri’s kitchen counter.

“Hungry?” the man asks without looking about to see if Yuuri’s followed.

“Actually, yes,” Yuuri answers, warming up to the idea of Viktor in his house when accompanied by free food, “I can’t really remember if I had dinner last night …”

“Then I’m glad I decided to come by,” Viktor says, smiling as he retrieves two plates and two sets of silverware from the basket, setting them down along with the assortment of breakfast foods, “Apart from keeping our bodies alive, food can also be marvelous for the maintenance of the spirit. There’s much joy to be had in good cuisine, and in good company.”

“I’m not sure I can be described as good company,” Yuuri mumbles, looking down at himself, ratty sweatpants, sweat-stained t-shirt, and all, “but thank you. Really.”

“Certainly.”

Yuuri watches as Viktor begins to fill two plates, surprised, though on second thought, perhaps he shouldn’t be, by the grace with which the man plates the food, expertly placing pastries and cheeses and slices of meat in a manner more artistic than the average picnic platter. Viktor takes both plates in hand and glances about, clearly looking for a dining room table, which Yuuri doesn’t currently have. 

He had one at one point, but then he had a bad dream, and upon waking, his foul mood led him to kick a table leg … which had apparently been less than sound at the time, and which then splintered, collapsing the entire thing. But even when he’d had a table, he hadn’t had any chairs. With the way work was, he rarely ate at home, and when he did, he did so standing up at the table, scarfing everything down in the five minutes or so he had before exhaustion claimed him. But that’s not really a story he wants to tell Viktor; the dream thing is enough for today.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says, catching Viktor’s eyes from where they’d been surveying the house, “I don’t actually have a real table or, uh, chairs for that matter, but I’ve got a couch and a coffee table in the living room, if that’s acceptable.”

To his credit, Viktor takes the information in stride, instantly changing direction and moving to set everything down on Yuuri’s stained, but serviceable coffee table. The fine dishes and elegant food look almost comically out of place on Yuuri’s table, among the dozen or so rings of stains left by cups of coffee, tea, and occasionally wine. All usually in the same chipped Bambi novelty mug. 

“It looks great,” he tells Viktor, nervously trying ensure he’s being appropriately grateful.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Viktor replies, “Now, tuck in and let me know how it tastes.”

At the sight of food, Yuuri’s stomach had abruptly realized its emptiness and informed him that he was positively starving, and now that it sits before him, beautifully plated and tempting as hell, Yuuri is certainly not inclined to argue, obediently taking up his fork. 

It’s good, like, really good. Yuuri had grown used to thinking of Red Baron frozen pizzas as gourmet, of Kraft mac n’ cheese as luxury … and he can safely say, as he chews the first home-cooked food he’s had in quite possibly years, that this meal has absolutely spoiled him. It’s gonna be hard, next time all he has in the house is a frozen pot pie, to sit down and eat contently; all he’ll be able to think about is Viktor’s cooking. 

And if there is anything in this world that Yuuri can truly appreciate, it’s good food.

“This is fantastic!” He exclaims, genuinely amazed, “How did you learn to cook like this? Did you work as a chef?”

“I’m flattered by the question” Viktor chuckles good-naturedly, “but no, I’ve never been a chef by profession, only by passion. I’ve spent some years developing my culinary skill, ever since I left my last profession,”

“Your last profession? Do you mean when you were a surgeon?” Yuuri blurts the questions out before adding, “I, uh, did a bit of googling, I hope that’s okay.”

“I’d quite frankly be disappointed if you didn’t,” the man replies smoothly, “and yes, in my last profession I was an ER surgeon. When I left that occupation, I diverted my passion for anatomy from medicine to the culinary arts.”

“Why did you leave?” Yuuri asks in between bites of pastry.

“I lost a patient, I’m afraid,” Viktor answers, busying himself with applying butter to a slice of french bread, for the first time, appearing almost … evasive.

“Doesn’t that happen a lot, though? In the ER?”

“It certainly does, and one gets used to the notion, but one day I lost one person too many and elected to make a change of career. I’d always been interested in the study of the mind as well as the body, and upon leaving the surgical field, psychiatry seemed like the obvious next step.”

“And cooking is your hobby?”

“I think of it as rather more than a hobby,” Viktor clarifies, “but it is one of the things with which I occupy my free time.”

“Well, you’re certainly very good at it,” Yuuri says, brandishing a fork full of breakfast in evidence of his appreciation. 

“I’m very pleased that you think so. I take a great amount of enjoyment in feeding friends and guests alike.”

“Are we friends now?” Yuuri asks, without any of the venom he would usually inject with those words, “Is that the reason behind bringing breakfast? Win over the feral animal with gifts of food?”

“I would like to be friends, but I suppose it’s up to you whether or not I succeed in fostering a friendship with you, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t answer the second or third question. Probably wise; Yuuri can’t think of an answer, affirmative or negative, that’s he’d happily accept.

“I guess …” Yuuri answers warily.

“Well,” Viktor says, appearing to sense a quickly-approaching stall in conversation, “Now that you have some food in your belly and I’ve been suitably friendly, perhaps it’s time to step temporarily into my psychiatrist shoes. I believe you mentioned you had a dream last night?”

Ah, it seems the time has come …

“Uh, yeah, I did.”

“Would you care to tell me about it? Take your time.”

“Sure, I’m just not sure exactly where to start …”

“Start anywhere you like, Yuuri, and we can work through the details together,” Viktor says, soothingly.

Yurri closes his eyes, allowing the images of his dream to come back to him, snapshots colliding together until they form some semblance of a narrative. His skin goes cold and clammy as he does so, he can feel it, even as he begins to feel the cracks in the stone body of his nightmares …

“I was a statue, standing atop a hill,” he begins, “like one of those ancient Greek statues, dressed in draped clothes of white marble … I was stone, and yet alive, conscious, but unable to move, even to draw breath. I was perpetually suffocating, unable to escape, or even cry out.”

“A primal fear.”

“Yeah … and then the sun set and rose again, over and over, faster and faster, and I began to age. My marble body started to dissolve in acidic rains, washed away by water, blasted by wind, until I felt raw. The stone began to crack as I weathered, my arms eventually falling off as erosion took its toll on me … It hurt, and I despaired, but that wasn’t the worst.”

“What was the worst?”

“The worst was that I knew no one would find me, and if they did they’d not think twice about this weathered hunk of rock on a hill. With no one to remember me, I wouldn’t just erode to dust. It would be as if I’d never existed at all.”

“It is human nature to wish to be remembered, and to fear being forgotten,” Viktor begins, legs crossed and a hand brought to his chin in thought, the iconic image of a man deep in thought, “that is not unique to you, or indeed to any of us, however much it may plague our thoughts. The part that interests me more is how you appeared to yourself as a statue, trapped in stone and left to erode.”

“Oh?”

“Do you feel trapped? Right now, where you are in your life, do you feel as though you are confined? Are there circumstances from which you’d like to extricate yourself, but that you don’t think it possible to free yourself from?”

“I mean, the job can be a bit difficult …”

“Elaborate on ‘difficult’?”

“I mean, it can feel kind of oppressive. I don’t have much of a life outside of work, not that I’ve even been much of a social butterfly, but I get out even less than I used to.”

“Yes, I imagine that is so, but,” Viktor gently interjects, “if you’ll pardon me, Yuuri, I was rather seeking to find out a bit more about how it affects your mental and emotional health. How does the feeling of being trapped manifest itself?”

“I’ve been having worse dreams for one.”

“Like the one from last night?”

“Yeah. And sometimes, when I’m going into a meeting with Yakov, I feel like I might never come out. Not like he’ll keep me there, but like I don’t dare leave. If I don’t help, no one else will do it, and I’ll be partly responsible if anything more happens …” 

“Trapped by your own conscience?”

“I suppose so.”

“Is the sense of being eroded related, do you think?” Viktor questions, “I must say, Yuuri, when I witnessed you at the crime scene, you seemed to undergo some sort of temporary transformation. Do you feel as though you come back with less of yourself than you had when you arrived? Not so much a fear of being forgotten, but a fear of your very identity dissolving?”

It’s downright unsettling. Because that’s exactly it. Yuuri comes back with less of himself, and it takes a while for that missing part to grow back. The more he puts his mind into that of another person, of a killer, the harder it is to grow back the parts of himself he’s lost before the next time he loses himself again. 

The fact that Viktor is able to perceive that is somehow both comforting and intensely irritating.

Yuuri doesn’t bother confirming the man’s suspicions verbally, he’s well aware that he doesn’t need to. Viktor will have figured it out already, no need for it to be spoken aloud.

“Then, I suppose,” Viktor says, responding to the answer that he’d never received, “my goal will be to help you maintain your sense of self amid all this. To help you find yourself, should you get lost along the way.”

“Mm,” Yuuri gives a short hum of assent, words having largely failed him since the conversation got deep.

He’s never been the best at articulating his feelings, and perhaps even worse at hearing others describe his feelings for him. 

“How are you enjoying the breakfast sausage, Yuuri?”

“Huh?”

It’s quite a sudden change of topic, if not an unwelcome one, and it manages to throw Yuuri for a moment or two.

“It’s a new recipe I created last week, and I’m eager for feedback,” Viktor explains, “How does it rank, among the different breakfast sausages you’ve eaten in your time?”

“Well, considering the vast majority of sausage I’ve eaten is Jimmy Dean and recently frozen, this is a serious step up.”

“I’m glad to hear that you approve,” Viktor smiles, and Yuuri realizes something odd about Viktor’s conversation.

For almost every conversation, almost every topic, Viktor is the pinnacle of absolute composure, controlled, with no twitch of a facial muscle, no shifting in his seat that hasn’t been planned in advance. It’s as if everything is rehearsed such that it will appear and sound exactly as it ought to, reflecting the image of Viktor Nikiforov, but not the man himself. 

But to this, there are exceptions. Passions. Viktor’s composure retreats just the slightest bit and the smile, the sparkle is permitted to reach his eyes when his interests are brought up. Yuuri can see why the man prefers to refer to his cooking or his drawing as passions rather than hobbies, for it is indeed more accurate. Viktor is a man of deep, intense emotion, although he hides it remarkably well. Beneath the placid stream roars a torrent.

Viktor is the king of his own little world, but passion is as a god. Nothing could ever rule Viktor Nikiforov, but for himself and his passions. 

Viktor is looking at him intently, as if endeavoring to reveal Yuuri’s thought’s at this moment, attempting to calculate Yuuri’s feelings and opinions … on Viktor? Or just in general? As he watches Viktor watch him, a thought springs unbidden to Yuuri’s mind: the word passion equally describes love … and violence. 

It manifests is all of us, both love and violence, but how might it manifest in the shadowed corners of Viktor Nikiforov’s mind? 

Is that Yuuri’s own thought, or is he mirroring Viktor’s thoughts about him? Viktor is a psychiatrist, a doctor, and a scholar; how could he resist the paradox that is the contents of Yuuri Katsuki’s head?  
While he gazes into the void, the void gazes back. The door opens both ways, it always has, and it is only a question of who learns the other’s truth first. 

What is Viktor’s truth? And what is the truth he’s looking for in Yuuri’s eyes?

“Thank you again for the breakfast, Dr. Nikiforov,” Yuuri says, and he can see how Viktor perceives the change, that something has occurred, a cog has turned in the clockwork of Yuuri's understanding.

There’s no confusion in Viktor’s face, but behind his eyes, there’s a flicker, quickly replaced by sheer curiosity. Yuuri has only untucked the corner of the curtain that shrouds Viktor’s true self, but he can see the way the realization, as it makes its way through, contorts in Viktor’s mind, a perception shifting, an assumption dissolving. Yuuri’s words, his sudden distance, have told Viktor all he needs to know. Yuuri is looking behind his curtain even as he seeks to remove Yuuri’s shroud, and Yuuri wants him to know of it. 

Be on your guard, Viktor Nikiforov. You’re not the only one who can play these types of games. 

Blue eyes glitter. Viktor loves a decent opponent as much as he does a faithful friend.

Yuuri smiles. Perhaps a little friendly competition would do him good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wacky dudes with violent tendencies bein' wacky dudes with violent tendencies . . . ain't they cute . . .
> 
> And yes, of course the sausage is people.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor has a bit of an epiphany and decides that perhaps it's time to get back into his own art.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in my apartment in France, and I haven't seem another human being in two days, because my leg is still not letting me walk around without extreme discomfort. So that's fun, but it does mean that I get to do some writing!
> 
> Drop by in the comments to let me know how y'all are doing!

Another day, another case, another mutilated body that used to be a person, another cup of shitty coffee, and another bout of nightmares . . . and throughout it all, there is Viktor, standing off to the side and slightly behind, observing with a deceptively detached expression, ever the image of the dispassionate scientist. A misleading expression because, the longer he looks, the more Yuuri can see the whirring of cogs and fine machinery churning out hidden thoughts . . . the man never stops, does he?

He follows quiet like a shadow, but with an undeniable presence, impossible to ignore even as he does nothing at all of note, something of that star quality, the thing that makes a person inexplicably appealing. Yuuri might have been extremely jealous in his younger days, but by now, he’s largely grown numb to that particular feeling, simply from overexposure. 

Besides, while Viktor may have that irritating sense of boundless confidence and effortless style, he never turns it against Yuuri, never fashions it into a blade with which to slice the way that most others Yuuri has know with that quality did. At least, he hasn’t sliced at Yuuri, not like that, but Yuuri was immensely gratified to see Viktor do just that with a rather rude pedestrian who spat at them in the street one day. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as watching a tough guy type shrinking away as Viktor rounds his elegant suited form upon him, blue eyes fixed like blades of ice. 

Yuuri rather wishes he were able to have such an effect. He’d mentioned it to Viktor, and the man seemed to be of the opinion that Yuuri need not wish, he need only do.

“I wish I could do that,” Yuuri had said, a pleasant, friendly kind of envious as he looks back over his shoulder to where the man who’d offended them slunk away in defeat, eyes focused upon the grey grain of the sidewalk rather than taking the risk of meeting Viktor’s eyes again.

“Whatever do you mean?” Viktor asked him, turning to him with a sort of warmth returning to his cold eyes as he looked upon Yuuri.

“That thing you do where you can just look at someone and destroy them with hardly a motion. I can only imagine how nice that’d be.”

“You don’t need to imagine, Yuuri,” Viktor told him, smiling pleasantly, “You’ve got quite striking eyes yourself, though you may not realize it. All you need to is let your emotions reach your eyes, and I believe you could stop men larger than him in their tracks.”

“Haha,” Yuuri couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought, “Thanks.”

“I do mean it, Yuuri,” Viktor said, oddly serious as he turned to look at Yuuri face on, “If only you let yourself, you could be a formidable force of nature.”

“Really?”

“I am convinced of it,” the man had assured him, turning back to look at their surroundings as they walked, “and one day, I believe you will be too.”

Yuuri hadn’t known what to say to that, but even now, he can’t get that conversation out of his head, and he has the distinct feeling that Viktor intended it that way. He’s not the type to say or do things he doesn’t mean; everything has significance. Even in lying, Viktor tells some sort of truth, as their frequent verbal and mental sparring matches have taught him.

It’s funny to say it, but it was remarkably easy to become accustomed to Viktor’s presence in his life. Humanity is adaptable above all else, and Yuuri is no exception to the rule, so it became surprisingly normal surprisingly quickly to have Viktor occasionally turn up at his home with a basket of food, or to go to Viktor’s office for a conversation and, more often than not, a glass of wine. It was nothing that Yuuri would ever have foreseen for himself, and yet it had come so easily.

Sometimes, in his darker moments, Yuuri felt like Viktor had arranged this smooth integration with more intentions than simply friendship or professional courtesy. Once or twice, Yuuri found himself wondering how he ever got by without Viktor to bring him food and company, without someone to share his experiences and occupy his time . . . and inevitably the thought followed that this could be dependence, and that it could be something Viktor had knowingly fostered, encouraged. He would then shake his head, dispersing his more paranoid thoughts, and return to life as usual, but the suspicion would linger in the back of his head, coming out to play in the wee hours of the morning, when sleep eluded him.

And sometimes, when he was just tired, to the bone, to the soul, when he felt entirely exhausted, Yuuri felt like perhaps he didn’t care whether or not it was friendship or dependence. It wouldn’t be his first unhealthy relationship, and frankly he was doing better now, physically and mentally, than he’d been doing alone.

Today is one of those days, when he’d wake from a sleep like the dead, born of profound fatigue, caring very little about meanings and intentions, and merely grateful for the simplest kindnesses, like the cup of some sort of fancy herbal tea that Viktor presses into his hand in lieu of cheap coffee as he stands over another improvised grave-slash showroom of sorts.

“Thanks, Viktor,” he sighs, happily accepting the cup and letting its warmth seep into his chilled hands. 

The weather had begun to turn, the days getting shorter and the nights colder, but the work never stopped. Apparently while the growing chill had put an end to things like most outdoor sports and picnics, the cold was no deterrent for your friendly neighborhood psychopathic murderer, if the number of dismembered corpses that kept turning up were any indication. 

He shakes himself for a moment, a shudder disguised as a shiver. His dreams had begun to reflect the job a bit more than they had previously. Of course, he’d been having nightmares before, for years, in fact, but they’d been more nebulous, a bit more varied and unpredictable, but lately they’d begun to exhibit a theme: the chimeras. Before, his nightmares were terrifying, certainly, but at least they were his own. Dreaming someone else’s dreams . . . that was new, and deeply unsettling. He’d talked with Viktor about it, but while that did make him feel better, it only felt better up until the next time he slept. 

“You’re welcome,” Viktor answers, ever courteous, “Is there anything that stands out to you?”

Yuuri takes a deep breath sipping his tea and casting his eyes over the grisly scene before them. The Chimera Killer had made another of his works of art, a mangled monstrosity of human and animal, a horrifying amalgamation and . . . an escalation. The new artist, for he certainly was not the original, was expanding his artistic horizons, becoming a bit more ambitious in his work.

The tableau before them looked much more like some sort of horrible painting, gory and gruesome, but with a very particular aesthetic, one that offends the sensibilities, but in a strange way, appeals to the eye. Despite the inherently disjointed nature of the mismatched bodies, there was a growing sense of symmetry, a growing attention to balance . . . a natural progression from brutality to artfulness.

This is the evolution of man and beast. In his mind, he pulls his materials apart, the puzzle pieces that have come together to create life can so easily be taken apart and put back together in another form, It’s a brief moment in which he can imagine how God must feel. Bones fit into sockets, held in place by tendon and muscle, just pieces of a puzzle that breathes and moves, that can be taken apart, the pieces reshaped, and the puzzle reconstructed as something else. Something new. Something better.

Creating chimeras . . .

“He’s growing in ambition and confidence,” Yuuri answers, eyes closing against the sights that were now branded upon his memory, “He’s not worried about being caught; he thinks the universe is on his side.”

Viktor gives him an inquisitive look, and Yuuri explains, a bitter sort of smile overtaking his features.

“He’s an artist, after all . . . touched by divinity, the divine spark that is artistic inspiration. What has he to fear from us, simple as we are?”

“Is that how he justified to himself the killing of the original and overtaking his works?”

“Probably. He who has the best vision is most worthy to wield the brush.”

“Indeed . . .” Viktor breathes, and it’s unclear to Yuuri whether or not that was the tone of skepticism or agreement . . .

“I’m gonna go share the news with Yakov. Whether or not he wants to hear it, I guess we’ll see, but I’d best go earn my paycheck somehow,’ Yuuri sighs, turning away from Viktor and walking reluctantly off towards where Yakov appears to be having a very intense conversation with someone probably quite important.

Viktor watches him go, watches the way he clutches the paper travel cup of tea to his chest as he walks, stepping more carefully the closer he gets to where an increasingly red-faced Yakov stands fuming.  
It’s such a shame, Viktor thinks, to watch Yuuri shrink in upon himself, even as he offers his insights, as he offers a glimpse into his fascinating mind . . . The only person Viktor has ever met who could genuinely, profoundly understand any other human being, and Yuuri can’t even begin to understand himself. Or, to be more specific, he won’t let himself begin to understand, so used to limiting himself, to cramming himself into the appropriate box, that his muscles have atrophied, and the memory of who he could be has faded into the distance, like so many missed opportunities. 

Viktor could help him, really help him. That is not to say that Viktor wouldn’t admit the selfish nature of this supposed altruism, in fact, his desire to help Yuuri become fully himself, a power in his own right, is incredibly selfish. Yuuri is the one person Viktor has ever met who could, in a very real sense, know him. Yuuri could, were he to so choose, understand on a personal level Viktor’s motivations, values, and emotions; more than that, Yuuri would be able to think and feel exactly as Viktor does. 

The one person in existence who could be his equal on every level. A match made in hell. 

All he needs is a push, a pull, the slightest pressure. Viktor revels in the thought of seeing Yuuri as he’s imagined him: a force of nature, the beautiful horror of an avenging angel, the torrential weight of water that collapses the roof of a church full of devotees. Elevated. Stunning. Terrifying. Perfect.

Viktor could offer that push, that pressure, and though it might hurt, as birth tends to do, the creature that would emerge would be celestial. 

As he watches Yuuri’s hands raise palms up in a gesture of unnecessary defeat, Viktor turns his thoughts to the conversation they’d been having. This creator of chimeras, this “artist” . . . he thought himself touched by the divine, the one with the vision worthy of being fulfilled . . . Viktor would have to respectfully disagree. 

Arrogance. Irritating. Intruding upon Yuuri’s mind, trespassing into his thoughts, imposing upon his dreams . . . Viktor was certainly pleased that the Chimera Killer had brought himself and Yuuri into contact, but all these combined were a transgression that Viktor couldn’t simply ignore. 

But perhaps this was an opportunity. A chance for Viktor to capture Yuuri’s attention in a way he hadn’t yet tried, and to simultaneously deliver a well-deserved jab to this newcomer who appears to be growing too big for his boots, as they say. 

He smiles a little private smile to himself and resolves to begin drawing up a list of suitable candidates for this new project. It will, of course, require more than one, and they must all be deserving. Life, after all, is a precious thing, and taking it indiscriminately would be irresponsible.

Oh, he thinks, grinning internally at the thought, he can’t wait to see Yuuri when faced with a work of Viktor’s own creation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What are y'all thinking? What's on your mind?


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri has another dream . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So turns out a bug bite on my dislocated knee gave me a fuckin awful infection and I had to go to the hospital, so that's fun . . . But school is going well so far, and it's the weekend, yo! I was feeling really shitty and wasn't up to writing for a while there, but with all the meds they're giving me, I'm starting to feel a bit better.
> 
> How are you folks doing? Got anything fun going on?
> 
> EDIT:  
> ANNOUNCEMENT: There is a new illustration for Serpentine in the works, so look out for that in the near future ;)

The very air itself is grey, casting everything about Yuuri in monochrome shades of black and grey and white. Ash swirls about, through the air, across the cool stone of the floor with each step he takes, looking almost like snow fouled with pollution; only the fact that it’s not freezing betrays the reality of it. Occasionally, the breeze will catch a drift of ash, seizing it and spinning, forming a column of sorts, a dust devil composed of ash rising briefly before falling back down to the floor, as if it had never been. 

Casting his eyes about, Yuuri can see the structure that towers around him, scorched stone walls that have long since gone cold, half tumbling down into what had once been some sort of ballroom. Massive tiles of elegant marble send a chill up through the bottoms of his feet, into the bones of his legs, and for a startling moment, the sensation of rising cold reminds him all too well of the serpent’s bite . . . and though the serpent doesn’t seem to be here, Yuui cannot calm the rippling of goosebumps that rise across his flesh. 

The walls, Yuuri sees as he walks slowly through the structure, go up only a few meters before they end in rough, jagged edges, like teeth in the maw of some great beast. The only thing remaining to give evidence of a now gone upper floor is a spiral staircase of wrought iron, continuing upwards towards heaven as if oblivious to the fact that its destination had been destroyed, an unknowing voyager travelling to a barren waste . . . Set into the crumbling wall near the staircase, there is a grand, elegant fireplace, almost the height of a man, with a grate of wrought iron echoing the design of the stairs.

There is no sky, he finds, upon casting his eyes up from the staircase he sees merely a grey void, something quite obviously empty, yet if he had to describe it, he’d say that the greyness appeared almost thick . . . a ceiling made of clouds, perhaps, but far too smooth and regular to be any natural clouds. Regardless of its nature, Yuuri gets the very definite sense that he is enclosed in this strange place.

All of a sudden, Yuuri becomes aware that he is not entirely alone here. He can’t be sure what revealed this fact to him, perhaps it was a sound, barely heard, or some slight movement in the periphery of his vision . . . He can’t say what it was that drew his attention, but as a shiver crawls up his spine, he finds himself compelled to turn around . . . and there’s someone there.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say something . . . it certainly has the shape of a person, a humanoid outline, but it is without features or expression, indeed it is nothing but a shape composed of gently drifting ash, standing totally still even as the particles that form it continue to dance in an almost non-existent breeze. Without eyes, it regards him with the impartial, unhurried calm of the grave before turning and slowly beginning to drift away, flecks of ash escaping from the form even as new ones are caught up. Yuuri couldn’t hope to explain it, but he can tell what the creature is saying: follow me. And he does.

He feels no danger from the stange form as it leads him along, around fallen stones and crumbling, scorched masonry, to what might have once been a hallway. It’s the first surviving piece of something other than stone and iron that Yuuri has seen in this place, a tunnel of sorts composed of beams and boards of wood reduced almost to charcoal. He hesitates for a moment as he regards the way that the grey light rapidly fades within the tunnel, but the creature turns to him, almost accusing, and spurs him onwards, though admittedly feeling increasingly wary as the walls come to surround him, an enclosure smaller and more obvious that that of the thickly clouded false sky.

In amongst the charred wood, Yuuri looks down the tunnel, observing how the cracks and splintered ends of the boards let some of the grey light through, creating dozens of ribbons of off-white, casting a ghostly glow wherever they find landfall within the structure. Through the cracks too comes softly floating ash, drifting in like the petals of some strange flower upon a gently flowing river. It’s a moment of relief.

Until it isn’t.

He realizes, watching the motes drift through the stripes of light, that there are dozens of shadow people in the dim space, dozens of them standing still as they capture the flakes of ash within themselves, creating bodies from the remains of a great destruction. His heart begins to race and he can feel something like a fist taking a crushing grip of his lungs, panic rising as they all look at him with the eyes they don’t have.

He’s not afraid of them, the incorporeal people waiting in the dark, the people of ash . . . He’s not afraid of them. He’s afraid of whatever it was that made them.

The fear seizing him, draining him of his rationality, Yuuri turns and runs out of the charcoal hallway, heedless of the ashen, shadowy hands that reach out to stop him, blinking hard with wild, desperate eyes as the light strikes him once more, seeming far brighter than it had been when he left it. Scrubbing a sweating palm across his eyes, he opens them to see . . . someone. And this is a someone, it is a human, not one of the shadow people, but a creature of flesh and blood, with eyes and a nose and a mouth, facing Yuuri directly, unafraid and unashamed. The face is hazy, like faces often are in dreams, but Yuuri knows immediately who it is: the one who’s been creeping about the edges of his mind for weeks, intruding upon his sleep and even the day-to-day thoughts of his waking hours. 

The Chimera Killer looks him in the eyes, calm, quiet, but with a much more sinister energy than the silence of the shadow people. They walk here, but him . . . he hunts.

Yuuri feels his heart fairly stop with terror, a second of ultimate panic . . . before something changes within him. It isn’t much, just the tiniest shift, but in that moment, all the fear bleeds away into anger.  
This pathetic thing believes himself so superior, the artist, elevated above the crowd by his artistic merit . . . He wouldn’t know true art if it struck him across the face and Yuuri, seized by some sort of impulse, strikes the smug face before him with an open palm, holding back not an ounce of his strength. The best thing about it is the way the Chimera Killer’s face contorts in pain and shocked surprise, unable to process the blow to his face, so accustomed to being untouchable, unreachable . . . It’s exhilarating to watch the illusion come tumbling down.

Sure, you’re frightening, Yuuri thinks, a sinister smile of his own creeping across his features, but you’re far from the most frightening.

I can be scarier than you are.

A strange sense of elation fills him, a warmth spreading through his chest as he draws in a deep breath, opening his mouth in a grin with far too many teeth . . . the smile of a predator, and the elation only grows as terror blooms across the other man’s face. 

This feels right . . . it feels . . . righteous.

Yuuri shoots a hand out to grab the Chimera Killer’s throat, and the way that hands scrabble uselessly at him arm while he squeezes imports a sort of pointed joy, sharp as a razor as it pierces his righteous heart. What needs to be done comes to him easily, with hardly a thought, and Yuuri steps forward with a confidence he’s never had outside of dreams, dragging the Chimera Killer’s pathetically struggling form along with him back to the scorched ballroom, a rapturous jubilance filling his ever-bleeding heart as he spots the fireplace, its iron grate propped open, almost as if in welcome. 

The Chimera Killer, a terrified understanding filling his hazy eyes as he spots the fireplace, shakes loose of Yuuri’s grip and tries to run, and Yuuri can’t even feel disappointed at being foiled, there isn’t time for such a thought to pass through his mind before the chase is on, dashing after the man across the chilled marble of the floor. Closing the gap, Yuuri throws himself forward, taking the man down by his legs, and grinning at the scream that is gurgled out against the marble as one of them makes a sickening snapping sound. 

Crawling across the floor up to the Chimera Killer’s face, Yuuri seizes the front of the man’s shirt and begins to drag him back to the fireplace, and with the broken leg, it isn’t terribly hard to force the man behind the grate and lock it back into place. The Chimera Killer clutches the iron bars of the grate in both hands and as Yuuri watches, the man’s eyes flick briefly to something just over Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri turns, just slightly, to see a pale hand outstretched, and in the palm of said hand, a box of matches, which Yuuri happily takes, without another backwards glance.

He slides the box open and takes from it a single match, observing it as it is for a long, calm moment, before striking it against the rough side of the box, bringing forth a heat and a light altogether out of place in this cold little world . . . or perhaps it is in its proper place, he thinks as he watches the flame begin to crawl down the wood of the match, towards his fingertips. Perhaps the flame does belong, after all, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between extreme heat and extreme cold. Both burn, either way. 

Seeing himself reflected in the wide eyes of the man behind the grate, Yuuri tosses the match in in between the bars, setting the contents of the fireplace instantly, magically alight. A high scream rises up along with blackened smoke, but it soon fades, and as it does, Yuuri feels the gentle pressure of a firm, comforting hand upon his shoulder, and hears a familiar voice softly break the new silence.

“Oh, my darling Yuuri . . .”

The dream begins to dissipate, and Yuuri blinks his eyes slowly open as he hears someone call his name.

“Yuuri?” Viktor calls to him softly, the hand gently shaking his shoulder moving up to rest against the side of his face as he is roused from sleep.

“Hm?” he grunts, voice roughened by slumber as he shakes free of the dream, the memory of it growing ever fainter as he returns to the waking world.

“You fell asleep in my office after our conversation,” Viktor explains, smiling down at him, hand still softly touching Yuuri’s face, “Let’s get you home and into bed, shall we?”

“Yeah . . . thanks Viktor,” Yuuri says, smiling back and leaning softly into the hand touching his cheek.

“Of course, my dear Yuuri.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, this is legit based on a dream I had when I was a teenager (though obviously adapted for the fic). For a while there, I would have vivid nightmares every single night, and I would remember them, so I wrote them all down in a notebook. I've long since lost the notebook, but some of the dreams have stuck with me.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confronted with what appears to be a new chimera killing, Yuuri knows that something is off, and it somehow makes him think of Viktor . . . He and Viktor also drift inappropriately close at the scene of the crime , leading to some uncomfortable speculation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So funny story, I was writing the new chapter for Settle Down when I accidentally switched tabs, and next thing I knew I had this monstrosity of a chapter . . . And I had stayed up far too late for what is, after all, a school night . . . oh well ;)

Yuuri sips slowly on the hot cup of herbal tea that Viktor brought him earlier this morning, concentrating on breathing slowly and regularly and trying very hard to block out the sound of a traumatized witness throwing up into a plastic sack. Meanwhile a similarly green-looking agent awkwardly tries to both console and question the man simultaneously, the effort appearing increasingly unsuccessful as the minutes go on. It’s hard, after all, to answer questions when you’re in the process of bidding farewell to both your peace of mind and your breakfast. 

Yuuri had started the morning off quite well, having slept relatively peacefully after Viktor drove him home and helped him flop his way into bed. He’d woken gently -still in his bed this time- to a soft stream of sunlight making its way through the curtains of his bedroom window and lighting up the room with a comforting warm glow. He’d had a few blissful minutes of wonderful, rare peace . . . until his cellphone rang, prompting a sudden sinking of his stomach and a tightening of his throat in terrible, but all too familiar, dread. Now this was a more typical morning routine for him, he thought, rolling out of bed with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man heading to his appointment at the gallows.

It was another scene of slaughter, because of course it was, in another otherwise boring urban neighborhood, all large houses somewhere in the realm of beige, with SUV’s parked out front, the back windows decorated, more often than not, with the ubiquitous stick figure family. Yuuri found himself more disdainful and resentful of those little stick figure families than he knew was reasonable, and he didn’t care at this juncture to analyze it. Viktor certainly would though, were he to catch wind of it . . . 

Yes, this was the mundane heart of suburbia, but it had become less boring in a deeply unfortunate way when the witness, now doubled over with an agent awkwardly patting his back, had discovered the scene in all its undisturbed horror.

It spoke to the skill and stealth of the killer that he had managed to construct his scene outdoors, the body suspended in the tall walnut tree that stood bursting from the meticulously maintained lawn. The body, for that was how Yuuri had to think of it, not as a person, was suspended amid the branches in what looked to be a web of extra strong fishing wire, the sort used by those deep sea sports-fishermen, seeking the thrills of a larger catch. And this indeed was a large catch. An adult man in his late thirties perhaps face slackened and pale in death, who had to be at least five feet ten inches tall, or at least, that’s what Yuuri had to estimate, because the man’s legs were not in their customary location.

Instead of emerging from his hips in the typically expected manner, his legs sprang from the sides of his torso . . . and they were not alone, some him sprang several other pairs of legs, and one could safely assume they were not all his. Multiple victims then, although he’d heard no mention of any other bodies found, not from Yakov nor from the techs who met him when he’d arrived on scene. Just the extra legs then, it would seem. Well isn’t that a great heap of fun . . .

In his peripheral vision, Yuuri sees Yakov approach and start shooing away the agents and techs that buzz around him like so many bees in a garden. It must be that time then, Yuuri thinks with something that he can’t even call dread anymore. Dread is by its nature, an exceptional emotion, and this has become altogether banal to Yuuri, hardly something unfamiliar.

He closes his eyes and lets himself sink through the thick, tar-like ooze, forcing himself to remain calm as it sticks to his eyelashes, glueing his eyes closed, ignoring the way he can feel it in his ears and his nose . . . He opens his mouth and breathes it in deliberately, allowing himself to drown in it, letting it coat his throat, and as he emerges from the other side, he coughs once or twice, spewing thick black gobs, before he opens his tar-filled eyes . . . and they aren’t his eyes anymore. 

He blinks away the dark smears from the surface of his eyes and finds himself watching this man from outside, looking in as the man lounges in front of the TV. He’s more than a little drunk by now, easier pickings than he would generally go for, but needs must . . . It makes it almost laughably simple to pick his lock, to enter his home, to waltz up the stairs and seize the man by the throat. Even in terror for his life, the alcohol facilitates squeezing the life from him. Disappointing, really. But while it may be unsatisfying, this in itself, the killing is not the act from which he seeks to draw satisfaction, so the method and the drama of it is a secondary concern, rather besides the point. 

He doesn’t bother laying out anything to make the next part less messy, after all, he himself is in protective garb with no risk to his own clothing, and there’s no one else living here to lament the ruination of the carpet. Were it a fine, handwoven rug, or some sort of heirloom, he might have bothered to remove it, to preserve it simply for posterity, but as it is, the floor is covered with cheap, shedding plastic fibers, not worth saving. 

He removes the legs mechanically, followed by the arms, for after all, people are composed of parts fitted together, not unlike parts of machinery. Once one knows the way a thing is constructed, the deconstruction takes little extra thought. With the torso now on its own, Yuuri turned to the chest he’d brought with him, opening the lid and removing the extra legs, human and not, his additional parts, and set about attaching them in the correct formation for the effect he wished to give. That’s what performance art is about, after all: communicating the sentiment, producing an effect in the minds of the audience. 

And this is for a very specific audience and a very specific purpose, not something that he would create on his own, given full artistic freedom. He would prefer to be less sloppy, more precise and elegant, but that’s not what this piece is about. 

He places the spider in his web, in the tree in the lawn. The man wove tales, now he’s woven himself into his own web. It was bound to happen eventually, he’s simply facilitated it . . . and given it a more literal interpretation. When he leaves, he goes unobserved, altogether pleased with his evening.

“I’ve seen you,” Yuuri whispers to himself as he begins to come back from this strange, darkened landscape of the mind, “Can you see me?”

“Yuuri?” Yakov says, just a bit too loud for Yuuri’s liking, and a bit too close behind him, causing him to jump. 

“Christ, Yakov, you surprised me . . .”

“So, you thinking it’s our guy?” Yakov asks, ignoring him, “Suburban neighborhood. People taken apart sloppily, put back together wrong with some extra parts, human and animal, then displayed . . . sounds like his kinda thing, doesn’t it?”

“Heh,” Yuuri huffs humorlessly, “This is not the Chimera Killer. C’mon, it’s not a chimera . . . it’s a spider.”

“Huh . . . now that you say it, it does kinda look like a spider in a web,” Yakov agrees, tilting his head to regard the gruesome display again, “But this guy’s already been escalating, how can you tell that this isn’t just his next step?”

“Because it’s not the right feeling,” Yuuri explains, admittedly without an abundance of patience, “This is too . . . staged. The others, he wanted us to see them, sure, but that wasn’t his primary purpose. He made them because he wanted to see the result, not just because he wanted to shock those who saw it after, it was a reflection of his personality, this . . . this isn’t. This feels like somebody wanted it to look like the Chimera Killer’s work, but not enough that someone looking closely couldn’t see the difference. Something to confuse, to taunt . . . to test.”

“A copycat?”

“Yeah, and not the usual kind. One who wants us to know it . . . or at least wants someone to know it. It feels like this was made for someone in particular, someone the killer had in mind. Also . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Those extra legs, the human ones . . . at the previous scenes, all the parts were recovered, right, although they were a bit . . . scrambled?”

“They were.”

“Well then, where’d these extra legs come from? There’s gotta be more victims, ones that we haven’t found, and I don’t think we’re gonna find them. At least, not until the time is right.”

“Somebody playing games?”

“Pretty much.”

“Fucking copycats,” Yakov swears, turning away before calling over his shoulder, “I’m not saying that you’re right, but if you are right, we’re in for a shitty time. Cuz if everything you've said is right . . . this is Chimera Killer number three.”

“Don’t I know it,” mutters Yuuri under his breath as he watches Yakov walk away.

He understands how the man feels, even through the fog of someone else’s thoughts that clouds his mind. That was the additional dread that accompanied every new up and coming serial killer: the multitude of false confessions, the admirers, and worst of all, the copycats. Yuuri had a particular distaste for copycats in general, for as much as being a serial killer in itself induced such distaste, it was somehow worse when it wasn’t even their idea, merely an imitation of another . . . If you’re going to be monstrous, couldn’t you at least be original? Surely last the very minimum of expectations to fulfill . . .

But this copycat, he wasn’t the usual thing, someone with a murderous impulse and a lack of creativity, this one was someone with an abundance of intelligence and originality who, for reasons of their own, elected to fake someone else’s killing . . . but not even fake it well; this individual could have made a perfect Chimera Killer scene, but had chosen to make one just short of perfect, just enough for Yuuri to see it plain as day . . . 

Someone is playing, and Yuuri gets the strange feeling that it had been arranged just for him to see and ponder . . . which is either incredibly self-centered, or he’s on to something.

“Yuuri, there you are,” comes a friendly voice from over his shoulder, and Yuuri needn’t look to see who it is calling to him.

Only one person speaks to him in those particular tones.

“Hello Viktor,” Yuuri greets him in return, “I was wondering where you’d got to.”

“I’m afraid I became entangled in conversation with a particularly charmless agent on my way over to you, and I’ve only just managed to extricate myself,” Viktor explained, and as Yuuri turned he could see the outwardly pleasant expression on the man’s face, but with the slightest tightening of the jaw giving away his deep displeasure. 

“Haha,” Yuuri chuckled, “Which agent was it?”

“I am infinitely pleased to say that I did not ask, and he neglected to offer me the information unprompted.”

“Mercifully,” Yuuri added with a grin. 

There was little funnier than Viktor when presented with a person of little tact or charm. He’d be the very picture of civility, but Yuuri could always distinguish his ire by the stiffness of his spine or the tension in his jaw, and the way that some fool would continue to bluster on without the slightest notion of how unwelcome they were left Yuuri in stitches. Viktor’s own elegance could be a double-edged blade, and Yuuri was happy to be in the audience.

“Indeed,” Viktor agrees with a sly smile, no doubt aware of Yuuri’s amusement at his own expense, “Now tell me, did I miss the show?”

“I’m afraid you did,” Yuuri tells him, “Finished up just before you came over here.”

It was something that Yuuri hadn’t expected to find comfort in, but the way that Viktor talked so casually about Yuuri’s way of doing . . . whatever it is he does put him curiously at ease. If anyone else had referred to Yuuri’s . . . thing . . . as a “show,” Yuuri would have been immediately repelled, but with Viktor it was different. Viktor has already shown Yuuri how much he admires and respects Yuuri’s ability and method of thought, so when he refers to it with such a casual term, it doesn’t serve to belittle it, but to normalize it. When Viktor talks about it, Yuuri doesn’t feel quite such a hideous outsider.

“So it would appear that the charmless agent deprived me of more than those several precious minutes of my life,” Viktor quips, joking, but with an undercurrent of genuine annoyance, “A shame.”

“Fret not, Viktor,” Yuuri assures him, “You’ll no doubt have the opportunity to see it again.”

“I look forward to it,” Viktor says with sincerity, glancing up to observe the corpse in the tree, “So, what has this unfortunate fellow had to say to you?”

“That someone is actively trying to complicate my life.”

“Oh?”

“It’s not the Chimera Killer, that’s for certain, but this somebody else, the one who did this, tried to make it look like one of his . . . but not enough to stand up to a proper look at it.”

“Not enough to stand up to you,” Viktor clarifies for him, “The agent who took it upon himself to speak to me was apparently absolutely convinced this would prove to be another chimera.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it, but yeah,” Yuuri says, “It feels totally staged, like I was meant to see through it, like someone is watching, testing, trying to see if I’m good enough to see . . .”

“Perhaps they are.”

“No need to get cryptic with me, Viktor, although I do know how much you love it.”

“I consider myself scolded,” Viktor answers, smiling, “I do believe you are correct. Your work for the agency is hardly a secret, not since that tabloid piece, and at any rate, the students you lecture are not sworn to absolute secrecy. Word of you has likely made the rounds.”

“I know . . . and I hate it . . .”

“As is your nature. You live at the periphery; being brought into the spotlight, however small it may be, cannot be a comfortable experience for you.”

“That’s the fundamental difference between the two of us, isn’t it?” Yuuri replies, entering into the sporting spirit their conversation has been growing, “You also live on the periphery, but you love the spotlight, the bigger the better, just so long as you can keep your audience at arm's length. Keep the curtain at least partially closed.”

“Are you suggesting that I am a liar, or a performer?”

“Both, every day of your life,” Yuuri lets his smile stretch to show just slightly more teeth than is appropriate in a casual, friendly encounter, “But that’s not where you differ from the average; everybody lies, you’re just far more practiced and better at it than most.”

“And you?” Viktor asks, tilting his head in amusement.

“I’m not quite to your level yet,” Yuuri answers, feeling the curtains flutter, “But I think you believe I could be.”

“My desire to befriend you is nothing but sincere.”

“I never said it wasn’t; I believe you are entirely sincere, but sincerity doesn’t negate self-interest. You’re not unlike whoever put this man in that tree . . . you want to be seen, you’re just waiting for someone clever enough to peel the facade away . . .”

“Um . . . do you guys need some privacy or something?” comes the sound of a slightly concerned, but low-key gleeful Phichit from somewhere to their right.

The sound of someone else’s voice startles Yuuri, and it’s only then that he realizes how close he and Viktor have come to stand next to each other, face to face and practically chest to chest . . . closer than is really appropriate given their circumstances and surroundings . . . Looking up, he can see Viktor’s grin, and knows instantly that Viktor found the whole situation entirely hilarious. It was infuriating, but infectious, and Yuuri has to stifle his own smile, warring between his sense of propriety, his embarrassment, and the shamelessness that Viktor tends to bring out in him.

“Sorry, Phichit,” he apologizes, stepping quickly backwards, away from Viktor, “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you alone for a sec,” Phichit says, eyes flicking to Viktor where he stands nearby, as if concerned about offending, should he exclude the man.

“Oh don’t worry about me,” Viktor casually states, catching on immediately, “I feel a sudden, desperate need for a nice fresh pastry. I’ll just go get myself one, shall I?”

“See you in a minute, Viktor,” Yuuri calls to the man as he departs before turning back to Phichit.

“Pastry?” Phichit asks, not what Yuuri expected him to start off with, though he certainly doesn’t object.

“Viktor brought a picnic basket with some breakfast foods in it, ‘cause neither of us had time to eat before coming out here.”

“Okay, see that’s what I wanna ask about: what’s going on with you two?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh c’mon, Yuuri,” Phichit huffs, “You think he didn’t have time to eat this morning? When did he make the pastries? Last night? They wouldn’t be fresh if that were the case. What you mean is that he got up at an absurdly early hour to make pastries, cuz he was planning on seeing you today, before you even got news that there was a new death to check out, and cuz he knows you do a terrible job of feeding yourself.”

“Wow . . .”

“Forgot that I’m actually really fucking smart, didn’t you?”

“Not for a second.”

“Uh huh,” Phichit sarcastically agrees, “Sure. But for real now, what’s the deal with you and Dr. Nikiforov? Isn’t he supposed to be your therapist?”

“You’re suggesting impropriety?”

“Hell yeah, I am. You guys were straight-up eye-fucking in front of a mutilated corpse, I’d say that’s pretty improper. Your professional relationship takes a secondary spot to that.”

“It’s not like that,” Yuuri protests, and even as he’s saying it, he can feel how pathetic and fake his objection sounds.

“I call bullshit, now spill,” Phichit snaps, taking Yuuri none-too-gently by the elbow and leading him away from the scene and the roaming techs, the need for secrecy appearing to only just have occurred to him.

“I-” Yuuri hesitates before giving in, “I don’t know. I don’t know what exactly is going on between us . . .”

“You don’t know?”

“I mean, first of all, he’s not exactly my therapist, it’s not really official like that, we just have conversations, really . . .”

“Just conversations?”

“And dinners . . . and breakfast . . . and he’s been talking about coercing me into going to the opera with him sometime . . .”

“Oh my god, Yuuri,” Phichit exclaims quietly, running an exasperated hand over his face, “You may be one of the densest people I know . . . You can read anybody’s mind, but when it comes to stuff like this, you live in ignorance! Think about it, he’s Baltimore elite, high society. Who he goes about with is going to be common knowledge in all the powerful circles, and if he wants you on his arm at the opera, it’s because he wants them to see him with you, and he wants them to talk about it.”

“But why . . .” Yuuri trails off, still clinging to the last bits of semi-intentional ignorance that he’s been protecting himself with.

“Because he’s serious about you, you dork. Cuz going to the opera together would make it something official. Romantically speaking.”

“You really think . . .”

“Yes, I think, and I think you knew too, somewhere in that dumbass head of yours,” Phichit tells him, and he’s not entirely wrong.

“What should I do?” Yuuri asks, feeling more than a little lost all of a sudden, despite the absolute confidence and electric calm he’d felt staring into Viktor’s eyes only minutes before.

“Start thinking about what you want,” Phichit answers, and it’s not a tone of impatience or frustration, he’s actually trying to give friendly advice, “And sort out your answer to the question he’s not asked, cuz it’s gonna come up soon.”

Phichit gives him a pat on the back and a gentle squeeze of the shoulder before turning and walking back towards the crime scene. As Yuuri’s eyes follow his departure, they find themselves suddenly caught by a complementary pair of ice blue irises where Viktor is watching him from the other side of the yellow tape, intent as ever, with that same thoughtful little smile that so often springs to his face in Yuuri’s presence.

Yuuri finds his apprehension drain away, the nervous wreck Phichit had left moments before stepping back and allowing the other Yuuri to come forward, the confident one, the strategist . . . the Yuuri that he becomes with Viktor . . . and it appears that he doesn’t need to think about what he wants. 

It was already happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I'm pumped to be getting further in to the story, to when they start getting TENSION, cuz I have a like 6000 word scene I wrote months ago that I've had to write my way up to, and now we're almost there!
> 
> And my knee is doing much better! So I'll hopefully be doing less of the 'coming home, taking a painkiller, and immediately falling asleep' thing.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mini chapter to go in between two larger chapters, because it didn't exactly fit anywhere else . . . Viktor considers his relationship with Yuuri, and what he should do next . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I say, this didn't really fit, so I put it in as its own chapter to tide you all over until the next one.
> 
> Reminder that this is Hannibal inspired, so the decisions and actions of the characters are more informed by my interpretation of who they'd be in a Hannibal-type situation than they are by the actual plot of the TV show Hannibal. This fic will be its own beast, and as such could go just about anywhere.

Viktor sits at the desk in his office, sharpening a pencil with a scalpel, his usual method to attain the most precise point possible, and from the outside he appears utterly serene. Internally, he has flipped his desk, sending books, lamp, paper, pencil, and scalpel flying. 

That charmless, gormless agent had lost him his opportunity to see Yuuri’s reaction, his initial response, when seeing something wrought by Viktor’s own hands. It was no exaggeration to say that he’d kill to see Yuuri observe and really, truly see the man behind the gruesome scene, to see Yuuri think his own thoughts, feel his own emotions, understand him in a way that would be impossible for any other . . . It was no exaggeration to say he’d kill for it, for he’d gone to exactly that length.

And Yuuri had seen him, had seen through his eyes, thought with his brain, and he had seen that this was no Chimera Killer, nothing so simple, so artless as that, but something more sophisticated, something that defied the usual, overly-simplified classifications that people liked to plaster over these sorts of things. It wasn’t nearly so satisfying as the thought of Yuuri seeing one of Viktor’s proper creations, something produced with Viktor’s full artistic expression and freedom, with his own style, but still, to see Yuuri truly look, to step into his mind for the first time, it ought to have been shared. It was an intimate thing, a profound experience . . . and he’d been denied it by a pathetic simpleton. 

The very thought grated at his nerves, chafing him raw, and the thought that the person responsible would have to be allowed to go free, or else jeopardize everything he was working towards, for himself and Yuuri, was like sandpaper beneath skin. Perhaps one day, he thought, soothing himself, the time would come when it would be possible to kill that agent . . . and perhaps create a scene, a love letter of sorts, that Yuuri would recognize as written for himself, and himself alone.

Love. It wasn’t the first time Viktor had associated the word with Yuuri, but initially he’d applied it to an admiration of the man’s mind, of his soul, if you will. Now it seemed to apply to more and more, to the way Yuuri leaned into Viktor’s frame in the growing chill, to the way that he would smile when Viktor said something particularly pretentious, to the way the his eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks while in the grip of some dark, desperate dream . . . Perhaps, upon further consideration, Viktor had invested himself far more than he’d ever intended, but there was little to do about that now, especially with the way that Yuuri peels back the curtain, scales Viktor’s defensive walls. He would resent it if he weren’t so impressed, and somewhere along the line, ‘impressed’ became ‘enamoured.’ 

He wouldn’t call himself obsessed . . . but he could see obsession from here, introspective enough to recognize his proximity to it, and honest enough to admit it. Again, under different conditions, he would resent it, Yuuri’s occupation of his time, of his very thoughts, but it is simply too impressive a feat to begrudge him for it. Viktor’s attention was not easy to capture, and he certainly believes in giving credit where credit is due.

He’d fallen into a period of ennui, he had to admit, before the appearance of Yuuri upon his radar, a dreadful absence of inspiration, of passion, that had left him almost listless. In recent days, the passion had returned, and he’d fairly ached for an outlet with which to express it. He’d sketched Yuuri once or twice, or perhaps a dozen times, overjoyed at having a muse of sorts, but something as wonderfully complex as Yuuri required more than that to satisfy; Viktor simply had to insinuate himself into Yuuri’s mind, there was no alternative, no substitute. 

The darkness in Yuuri, hidden though it may be, speaks to the darkness in Viktor, something more profound than comradery, something that, were he so inclined, he might attribute to a higher power, as things were rarely so perfect on their own. If he could bring it out, cultivate it, nurture it, Yuuri could be the perfect companion, something so much more powerful than the shivering mass of anxiety and self-doubt Viktor had first encountered, wedged into the corner to avoid the attention of a crowd of insignificant people. Something glorious. 

Yuuri is different, he’s significant, and Viktor would have him know it. He should know. He deserves what Viktor could give him, and Viktor has always believed in giving people what they deserve.

Yuuri has brought the passion back; in his uniqueness, his singularity, he cannot help but inspire.

Perhaps it is near time, Viktor considers, sitting at his desk, examining the scalpel in hand, to host a feast once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What are y'all thinkin?


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new crime scene, this one something a bit different, spelling more than a bit of trouble. Meanwhile, Viktor and Yuuri's relationship takes a step forward, though whether that is the right direction remains to be seen . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Another chapter so soon?" you say?  
> "Yes, I have severe insomnia," I say.  
> I may have gone to class on one hour of sleep and cried no less than thrice in front of people that day, but I wrote some fic, so that's something.

“What the fuck!”

It’s more of a statement than a question, and it’s the first thing Yuuri hears that morning, Yakov screeching at him through the speaker of his phone, which he hadn’t even really realized he’d answered, still on auto-pilot and half asleep.

“Hnwha?” he answers, scrambling upright in bed amongst his twisted and tangled sheets, scrubbing a hand over his eyes in an attempt to rouse himself.

He hadn’t exactly slept well, his dreams a roiling mass of smooth, dry scales in a darkened winter wood, a cold stone sitting heavy in the pit of his gut, even as the dream fades, and hysterics from Yakov first thing in the morning aren’t exactly helping with his sense of unease. A feeling which he suspects, with a fair amount of certainty, will only grow worse as this morning wears on.

“Well, it looks like we have the actual worst fucking luck,” the voice goes on, disregarding, or perhaps not even noticing, Yuuri’s lack of comprehensible response, “because we’ve got another one.”

“Another Chimera?” Yuuri questions, waking up fast now, because it’s a bit early to be leaving a new scene of horror, even for the Chimera Killer and his odd schedule.

“Nope, not this time.”

“Well, what is it then?” 

“I have my suspicions, but you get down here and do your thing,” Yakov orders, and Yuuri doesn’t need an empathy disorder to recognize the strain in his voice, like he’s trying not to choke on his own words, and the anger behind them, “You’ve read through the Ripper files, right?”

“Yeah, I have,” Yuuri confirms, beginning to understand the situation, the stone in his belly all the heavier.

“Good, get over here. I need a second opinion before I can give any sort of confirmation, which our bosses will be demanding, and you’re the closest thing anyone has to an expert on that guy.”

“Right, I’ll head over.” Yuuri agrees, despite the impulse to say that reading the files hardly makes him an expert, although that may be incorrect as well, considering Yuuri’s . . . unique way of looking at things.

It’s nothing compared to actually being there, in the place where it happened, where life was abruptly and violently converted to still, stagnant death, but the photos did relay some of the story. What had been done was revealed in the files, in impersonal, clinical detail, the wounds given, the trauma experienced, the resultant mess, the resultant loss of life . . . but through this detached medium, something of the sentiment was lost. Even the most violent and disturbed, or perhaps particularly the most violent and disturbed, did nothing entirely without sentiment; empathy and compassion, yes, they were indeed lacking, but the sentiment that motivated yet remained. The photographs had shown Yuuri a shadow of the man who created the scene, but nothing clear enough for him to see through the killers own eyes . . .

But today, today it sounds an awful lot like Yuuri might be about to experience it all first hand. A shamefully significant portion of him is full of excitement, an excitement that he tells himself is strictly academic, the thrill of seeing that which he has studied in reality . . . The rest of him is a great pit of whirling anxiety and dread, but that’s not altogether unfamiliar. 

“I’ll text you the address,” Yakov says, then hangs up without any formal indication of departure.

When Yuuri does see it, he could almost laugh, though not out of humor.

In the temporarily empty gallery, an appropriate location for obvious reasons, sits a piece of Renaissance sculpture, but in lieu of marble, the figures represented are but flesh and bone, meat that had once been a man and a woman. 

She sits serenely in calm, resigned lamentation, cradling him in her arms, where he reclines, limbs loose in death, head flopped back. Her head is the tip of a pyramidal structure, but much as Michelangelo had needed to distort the proportions of the Virgin Mary and Jesus due to the awkward logistics of a young woman holding a full grown man, the woman chosen for this particular piece had to be significantly larger than the man. The creator had needed to get very specific with this one, but then, that was rather his way. 

He loves specificity, it shows the efforts he’s had to go to.

Wires descend from the ceiling to keep the two of them in position, fishing line and reinforcements giving the illusion, from a distance, that Mary sits on her own, holding her son in her arms, grieving his demise on the rock of Golgotha. The tears she weeps are bloody. But the dead do not grieve, and neither does the woman in place of Mary, eyes closed, but not in sorrow, and Yuuri knows, looking at this, that neither of these people will be much grieved, both probably without much family, making their roles as mother and son all the more ironic. 

From the crucifixion wounds on the man’s hands and feet, blood ran in rivulets too artistically attractive to be natural, but from the wound in his side, flowers spilled. Yellow carnation. That's disdain. 

Michelangelo hadn’t wanted Pietà to represent death, but this parody was all about death. The marble Mary had been carved with a youthful visage to represent her purity, her incorruptibility, and Yuuri just knew that whatever this woman had done to offend, whatever had won her this place, had been anything but pure in nature. Similar for the man. The two of them, each did something that forfeited their right to survival . . . so the Ripper had taken it. 

The Ripper loves spectacle, and irony, and Christ, he’d left them a greatest hits, hadn’t he?

In his mind’s eye, Yuuri watches himself create this scene, stringing up these things, for they weren’t people to him, and laying flowers, a mockery of the practice of laying flowers on a grave, that’s why he loves it so as a motif, besides the aesthetic value, of course. Oh yes, there’s that smugness, that viceral satisfaction from having been the one to create, to elevate simpler materials into a greater work. He is the creator, and there are no others, not like him.

It’s not a god complex as such, he doesn’t believe himself a god, and if he does believe in a god, he feels the deity simply doesn’t deserve his devotion. On the contrary, he revels in the defiance of any god, revels in profaning the sacred, simply because it’s amusing how deeply such a thing strikes at the heart of people. Yuuri understands. God doesn’t build cathedrals, people do, motivated by shared belief . . . when belief is shaken, the cathedrals fall, and it must be such a feeling of power, to be the one behind the earthquake.

This, however, isn’t quite art for the sake of art, for the sake of beauty and the satisfaction it brings, no, this was spurred into action. Under the smugness, under the pride, frustration rankles, seethes. This is indeed a greatest hits, with full intent, he wants it absolutely certain that this is him, that he is still out there, that he is still to be feared . . . and admired, by a certain few. It’s not just that his name is out of the papers, he doesn’t mind that, he frequently goes silent for years at a time, until the next time inspiration seizes him . . . 

The Ripper has found a muse. It hasn’t happened before and it’s exciting, something to be celebrated, and he demands that it be known . . . so before he gets properly creative, he’d best make sure that everyone is watching.

Well, they certainly are now.

When Yuuri finally blinks the tar from his eyes, Yakov is standing right next to him.

“The Ripper?” he asks, although he certainly knows the answer already.

“Yeah,” Yuuri sighs, still coming down from whatever confusing, roiling emotion that lingered in his core, “but this is just so . . . obvious. He’s thrown every last thing he’s known for at this piece, every last trademark . . .”

“Please don’t tell me this is another copycat scene, I swear to God-” Yakov begins, anger building up behind the words before Yuuri halts the wave.

“Oh, no, it’s him alright, it really is . . .”

“Why did you say that so strangely?”

“Because he threw all his greatest hits at us today. I mean, intricate mockery of Christian religious imagery, references to Renaissance art, flower language . . . And of course wounds inflicted while the victims yet lived, and once you check, you’ll find organ removal. He usually only has a couple of them in any given individual tableau, after all, he has to leave some room for experimentation, or he’d never grow as an artist.”

“Be glad that I know you as well as I do,” Yakov throws out casually, “because if I didn’t, you would seem extremely creepy right about now.”

“I’m infinitely grateful,” Yuuri responds, voice flat, “but the Ripper wants us to know for absolute certain that this is him, that he’s still around, and that he’s found new inspiration. We should expect more from him, perhaps even more than his usual groups of three, and they’re likely to get more . . . avant garde.”

“Oh fucking fantastic, that’s just what we need, more ‘avant garde’ serial killings,” Yakov curses, before storming off to go make what Yuuri expects to be an extremely unpleasant phone call.

“I apologize for my late arrival,” comes Viktor’s low, smooth voice from over Yuuri’s left shoulder, and he turns to meet it as the man continues, “I’m afraid I made a somewhat unexpected mess in the kitchen, and I had to clean it all up before it got the chance to stain.”

“No worries,” Yuuri tells him, a smile creeping over his face despite himself and how inappropriate signs of happiness or humor are at such a time and place. 

“So, what have we?” Viktor asks, pressing a warm travel mug into Yuuri’s hand and taking a sip from his own mug, casting his eyes over the grisly scene.

“The Pietà.”

“Which one?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, could you be more obvious? You and your constant compulsion to test me . . .” Yuuri sighs, putting on the act of being more exasperated than he is, “It’s the one people always think of when they hear ‘Pietà,’ not the Rodanini or Florentine Pietà. It’s that one. I took art history, you know?”

“Did you now?”

“Yes I did . . . but I also know how to use Google, you goof.”

“Very well put,” Viktor chuckles, “but besides that, what have you seen?”

“Well, it would appear that our good old friend the Ripper has found new inspiration,” Yuuri remarks as he sips on what turns out to be some sort of spiced tea, “I’m almost insulted.”

“Insulted?” Viktor questions with a look that appears to be of genuine confusion, something Yuuri doesn’t often see on that pale face.

“It’s just that it’s so deliberately obvious,” Yuuri sighs, recognizing that this will sound a bit not-good, “It’s like he’s drastically underestimating my, our, ability to recognize him. He doesn’t think that I, that we, are good enough to do it without a freaking neon sign pointing the way, although he’s never exactly been difficult to recognize. So either I should be insulted, or I should appreciate how hard he’s trying to fuck with my head and my expectations . . .”

Viktor just stares at him for a moment, not shocked, just very still.

“I apologize for my language,” Yuuri adds hastily, looking guiltily away and staring intensely at the safe zone that is his cup.

“Oh no,” Viktor protests after a moment, “I think most people would agree that situations like yours are exactly the sort that expletives are designed for, and it would be unfair to begrudge you the use of them.”

“Heh,” Yuuri huffs, “I appreciate that. Still, sorry.”

“If you require my forgiveness, you have it, Yuuri,” Viktor smiles at him, “and I’m sorry that you’ve been made to feel insulted.”

“Oh, don’t apologize, it’s not your fault . . . and yes,” Yuuri relents, “I recognize how silly I sound in the wake of our recent exchange.”

“Well, just so long as you recognize it,” Viktor smirks only to receive the friendly jab of an elbow in the region of his ribs, something Yuuri suspects that only he could get away with.

It’s an oddly heady feeling, being able to elbow Viktor Nikiforov in the ribs and just get another smirk in return. Given the way that the man’s stare, when he chooses to weaponize it, can freeze anyone who dares approach without invitation in their tracks, struck still like a deer in headlights, probably no one else had ever dared try, and Viktor’s potential response to them has remained an ominous and terrifying unknown. Logically, they must know that he won’t just strike them down then and there, but if looks could kill, Viktor would certainly be a mass murderer.

Viktor has never turned his evil eye on Yuuri, and the fact that he hasn’t does something far more dangerous to Yuuri than any glare could do . . . It makes him feel special. Viktor smiles down at him even after he’s given the man an elbow in the side, and Yuuri’s heart pounds and his chest goes tight because no one has ever looked at him quite like that, and it’s a rush of something almost like power. It’s stupid to let it go to his head like this, and he knows it, but it’s awful hard to stop.

“Oh, hush, you,” Yuuri grins back, feeling that awful, wonderful squeeze behind his ribs.

“I’ll consider myself chastised. Now,” Viktor takes what appears to be the final sip of his drink, “would I be amiss in thinking that you perhaps might not yet have eaten today?”

“I would love to be insulted by your lack of faith,” Yuuri sighs, “but I’m afraid you’re not incorrect.”

“Then might I suggest we get some breakfast before you have to go down to the morgue for the post-mortems?” 

“With such appetite-inducing talk, how could I possibly refuse?” Yuuri joked, beginning to walk away, towards the line of tape that marked off the site of today’s new tragedy, “But why do you always ask these questions when you already know the answers?”

“Oh, simple, it’s because I like being proven correct.”

“Of course you do.”

“Don’t we all?” Viktor asks, and Yuuri fights a shiver as their arms brush while they walk.

“I know I sure do,” Yuuri covers the effect that their close proximity has on him by adjusting his jacket, “So, what’s for breakfast, may I ask?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose too much upon your time,” Viktor tells him diplomatically, though Yuuri suspects that’s not quite true, that Viktor would impose quite a lot if he thought he could get away with it, and Yuuri almost wishes he would, “so I took the liberty of preparing us a picnic basket.”

“Of course you did,” Yuuri smiles, and it takes him a moment to say anything more, that old self-doubt that lingers raising its head even as he tries to shove it back down, “I really appreciate it, you know.”

“It?”

“All the things you do for me,” Yuuri’s voice is quiet, and he can’t help but look at the ground as it passes beneath his feet, exiting the building, “The breakfasts, the lunches, the driving me home, putting me to bed . . . You don’t have to do them, and I honestly can’t fathom why you do.”

“I don’t make a habit of lying, Yuuri,” Viktor says, and Yuuri can feels those blue eyes on him even while he can’t see them, colder than the chilled air they breathe, “I was being entirely honest when I expressed the wish to be your friend.”

“Of course you don’t lie, you just neglect to inform on occasion,” Yuuri can feel Viktor’s smirk like a touch as he tells the impolite truth, something Viktor has always seemed to appreciate, “but I can’t be the easiest person to have for a friend, I mean, look at you feeding me and putting me to bed . . . I can’t tell if I’m a dog or a baby in this scenario . . .”

“If I had to choose, I suppose I’d go with a dog. I can’t imagine myself suddenly having a baby, and dogs are at least somewhat independent,” Viktor muses drily, “But I think it would be rather more correct to call you my friend, a grown man, who just happens to have an exceptionally difficult occupation, and a friend of his own who, conveniently enough, enjoys feeding others.”

“Are you getting defensive with me on my behalf?” Yuuri asks, looking up to meet Viktor’s eyes at last.

“As long as you are in need of it, I will happily defend you against anyone, including yourself," Viktor tells him, voice just a tiny bit sharp.

That’s it, the passion with which he regards Yuuri, the firmness of his voice in defense of Yuuri, that’s the thing that’s driving Yuuri insane, that’s making him feel so dangerously special . . . It’s too good to be healthy, and too good to last.

“I don’t deserve someone like you looking after me . . .” Yuuri almost whispers, but Viktor catches it, of course he does.

“You deserve everything,” Viktor says, stopping Yuuri with a firm hand on his arm, looking at him with an intensity that perhaps ought to be somewhat frightening, if Yuuri were a more sensible person, “and if I had my way, you would know that, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“You really believe that don’t you?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t say it otherwise,” Viktor affirms, still not letting go.

“Then I’ll try to believe too,” Yuuri smiles up at him, placing his own hand over Viktor’s where it rests on his arm. 

Viktor just holds his eyes, slowly turning his hand underneath Yuuri’s until they are palm to palm, fingers slowly curling to enclose Yuuri’s hand. 

Yuuri curses himself, but he just can’t look away.

And Viktor doesn’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two and their damn sexual tension . . . oh and the murder, there's that too . . .


End file.
